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III 



IS 
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OF THE 



AMERICAN BASTILE 



TAey fore darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil." 

Biblical Daguerre of the Lincoln Dynasty. 



" The suggestion that the Union can be maintained by the numerical predominance 
and military p>roiDess of one section, exerted, to coerce the other into submission, is, in 
my judgment, as self-contradictory as it is dangerous. It comes loaded with the death- 
smell from fields wet with brothers' blood. If the vital principle of all republican 
governments " is the consent of the governed," much more does a union of co-equal 
sovereign States require, as its basis, the harmony of its members and their voluntary 
co-operation in its organic functions," 

EDWARD EVERETT. 



" Successfid co-ercion by the North would be just as revolutionary as successful 
secession by the South." 

HORATIO SEYMOUR. 



"A bargain broken on one side, is broken on all sides." 

DANIEL WEBSTER. 



" When these dis-United States part, let them part in peace ; the natural gravita- 
tion of affinity will bring about the only enduring union." 

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 



" The Chicago Platform is a declaration of war upon the Constitution ; and its 
practiced exposition the most consumate despotism." 

TOUT LE MONDE. 



" / have too much respect for any man that has standing enough to be elected a 
Senator, to believe that he is for war, as a means for preserving the Union; I have too 
much respect for his intellect to believe, for one moment, that there is A man for 

WAR WHO IS NOT A DISITNIONIST PER SE." 

STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 



SECOUSTD EZDITIOHST. 




PHILADELPHIA: 
PUBLISHED BY JOHN CAMPBELL 

NO. 419 CIIESNUT STREET. 

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SECRETS 

OF THE 



AMERICAN BASTILE 



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They love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil." 

Biblical Daguerre of the Lincoln Dynasty. 



" The suggestion that the Union can he maintained by the numerical predominance 
■and military prowess of one section, exerted to coerce the other into submission, is, in 
my judgment, as self -contradictory as it is dangerous. It comes loaded with the death- 
smell from fields toet with brothers' blood. If the vital principle of all republican 
governments " is the consent of the governed," much more does a union of co-equal 
sovereign States require, as its basis, the harmony of its members and their voluntary 
co-operation in it« organic functions" 

EDWARD EVERETT. 



" Successful co-ercion by the North would be just as revolutionary as successful 
secession by the South." 

HORATIO SEYMOUR. 



'A bargain broken on one side, is broken on all sides." 

DANIEL WEBSTER. 



" When these dis-United States part, let them part in peace ; the natural gravita- 
tion of ajfinity will bring about the only enduring union." 

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 



" The Chicago Platform is a declaration of tear upon the Cosntitution ; and its 
practictd -exposition the most consumate despotism." 

TOUT LE MONDE. 



" / have too much respect for any man that has standing enough to be elected a 
Senator, to believe thai he is for war, as a means for preserving the Union; I have too 
much respect for his intellect to believe, for one moment, that there is a man for 

WAR WHO IS NOT A DISUNIONIST PER SE." 

STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS, 



SEConsriD ezditiozst. 



PHILADELPHIA: 
PUBLISHED BY JOHN CAMPBELL, 

NO. 419 CIIESNUT STREET. 

1863. 



> re z 



PREFACE. 



Contrary to the writer's original intention, but yielding to the 
representations of gentlemen to whose good judgment he de- 
fers, this pamphlet makes its appearance. 

An admirable pamphlet, entitled " Fourteen Months in 
American Bastiles," by Frank Key Howard, Esq., and pub- 
lished by Kelley, Hedian, & Piet, Baltimore, has already been 
presented to the public. So far as it purports to treat of the 
matter, it does it so well and so thoroughly, that no one could 
expect to go over the same ground with advantage to the pub- 
lic or with credit to himself. To it, therefore, for information 
in regard to the trials and hardships of State prisoners, the 
reader is referred. 

The purpose of the succeeding pages is to show the character 
of offences which induced the Administration to resort to a 
despotism. The case of the writer will serve as a sample, as it 
were, of the others. 

His offence was a letter to Wm. H. Seward — a letter written 
with no purpose of offence, but, on the contrary, from many 
circumstances known to the writer, he supposed its contents 
might receive Mr. Seward's favorable consideration. 

In addition to the matter given in the following pages, to 
show the ground upon which this expectation was based, the 
official despatches of Mr. Seward, since published, would seem 
strongly to confirm all the assumptions of the writer as to Mr. 
Seward's original peaceful policy. 

In his despatch No. 2, page 74, dated Washington, April 10, 
1861, to Mr. Adams, speaking for the President and himself, he 
says: 

" He (the President) would not be disposed to reject a cardi- 
nal dogma of theirs, (the Confederates,) namely, that the Fed- 



IV. 

oral Government -could not reduce the seceding States to obedi- 
ence by conquest, even althougth he were disposed to question 
that proposition. But, in fact, the President willingly accepts 
it as true. Only Imperial or despotic Governments could subju- 
gate thoroughly disaffected and insurrectionary members of the 
State. The Federal Republican system of ours is, of all forms 
of government, the very one which is most unfitted for such a 
labor. Happily, however, this is only an imaginary defect. — 
The system has, within itself, adequate, peaceful, conserva- 
tive, and recuperative forces. Firmness on the part of the 
Government in maintaining and preserving the public institu- 
tions and property, and in executing the laws where authority 
can be exercised without ivaging war, combined with such 
measures of justice, moderation, and forbearance, as will disarm 
reasoning opposition, will be sufficient to secure the public safe- 
ty until returning reflection, concurring with the fearful experi- 
ence of social evils, the inevitable fruits of faction, shall bring 
the recusant members cheerfully back into the family, which, 
after all, must prove their best and happiest, as it undeniably is 
their most natural home. 

" Keeping that remedy steadily in view, the President, on the 
one hand, will not suffer the Federal authority to fall into abey- 
ance, nor will he, on the other, aggravate existing evils by at- 
tempts at coercion, which must assume the form of direct war 
against any of the insurrectionary States. 

" You will rather prove, as you easily can, by comparing 
the history of our country ivith that of other States, that its 
Constitution and Government are really the strongest and 
surest which have ever been erected for the safety of any 
people." 

The state of affairs was simply this : The principles and pol- 
icy of the dominant element in the Republican party, as ex- 
hibited in its platform, its campaign text-books, and as ex- 
pounded by its most trusted leaders, were so clearly subversive 
of the Constitution, and imminently threatening to the rights, 
peace, and dignity of the South, that, unless they should prove 
to be the most consummate liars, the South was compelled to 
anticipate such action by the Federal Government and the com- 
bined State Governments of all the non-slaveholding States, 
acting in concert, as would cause, " under one Republican Ad- 
ministration, slavery to pass away." This statement of the po- 
sition of affairs cannot be successfully contradicted, 



Thus situated, the South put itself in a position to secure 
safety, either in or out of the Union, as necessity might dic- 
tate. A party -which had carried on a life-long envenomed war 
against the institutions, interest, and character of the South, 
had suddenly obtained possession of the Federal Government, 
with threats still hot on its lips ; yet, hoping that the glut of 
spoils and the sweets of office, might so far assuage this bitter 
hate as to induce it to forego its baleful programme, the South 
sought such reasonable assurance of its safety and of its con- 
stitutional rights, as might allow it to remain in the Union with 
safety. The President was deaf to every appeal by the South 
and the conservative North ; he would know no Shibboleth ex- 
cept the Chicago platform ; he persistently and ostentatiously 
announced himself the President of his party, and would carry 
out its avowed principles. In the very aet of taking the oath 
to maintain the Constitution, he flouted defiance of the Supreme 
Court in the very face of the Chief Justice administering to him 
the oath. 

His chosen friends in Congress — a ruling portion — inexora- 
bly refused to forego one jot or tittle of their announced purpo- 
ses ; purposes which were deliberate, malign, and monstrous 
treason, wilful and perverse violatious of the Constitution ; they 
refused to the South even that small portion of its rights con- 
tained in the Crittenden Compromise ; they refused to the North 
its prayer, made in countless petitions, to allow the people of the 
North to give this assurance. In the Senate, the South, through 
its representatives, begged that some evidence would be given, 
that hostility was not intended against the South, and all would 
be well. This was scornfully refused. A Peace Convention 
was obtained through the efforts of the South, "seeking an 
excuse to remain in the Union ;" but, unhappily, the men 
in that Convention, of the Republican party, professed to be- 
lieve that "the South could not be kicked out of the Union." 
and that the programme announced of kicking and spitting 
upon it in the Union should not be changed, 



V1H, 



ardly hearts, deserted the principles of life-long profession, to 
take upon themselves the Republican yoke to get fed at its 
stalls, have earned an infamy, the leprosy and stench of which 
neither gold nor office can conceal nor smother, and whicli will 
prove to their descendants a sad heritage for generations to 
come. They betrayed the people who had trusted them. They 
will rot beneath a nations' curse. 

The original issue is still before us. It is this : The Admin- 
istration claimed the right and avowed its purpose to substitute 
for the Constitution the Chicago platform, interpreted by Abo- 
lition high priests. The South, clinging to the Constitution as 
the ark of common safety, as the bond, the only bond of ITnion r 
protested against this monstrous substitution, and demanded an 
unqualified adhesion to the Constitution and lawful decisions of 
the Supreme Court. 

The whole scope and purpose of the action of the South was 
to force a decision upon this, the only true issue. 

Certain of defeat upon this naked issue, the Administration 
designedly and fraudulently precipitated other issues to avoid 
this, the only true one. 

The salvation of the Administration depends upon a sup- 
pression of the truth. Its acts cannot bear the light ; light 
must be shut out, or the Administration dies. It has no pun- 
ishment for the admitted general robbery and corruption by 
its own agents in every branch of public employment, although 
it is its bounden duty to punish such persons, but it reserves its 
malignant activity to oppress those who contend for the preser- 
vation of the Constitution unsullied. That is the mortal, the un- 
pardonable sin. 

% H. WINDER. 
Philadelphia, March, 1863. 

race to whom its destinies were committed, to go off in a crusade, jeopardising the 
institutions of the country, violating the Constitution, menacing the harmony and in- 
tegrity of every bond of union, rather than slavery should be extended. What do 
they care for slavery? They would seek to rivet slavery upon the limbs of thirty 
millions of people, and upon humanity for all time to come, in order that mad, crueL 
incendiarv ideas should bo carried out in reference to a few blacks." 



THE SINS OF STATE PRISONERS. 



u JEx uno elisce owtiics." 



On the morning of the 10th day of September., 1861, I had 
mailed a letter to Governor Seward. As this letter exercised a 
potent influence in keeping me in confinement, some prelimi- 
nary explanation of the causes and motives which led to my 
writing it, is necessary fully to comprehend its import. 

In the month ©>f August, 1861, 1 addressed the following let- 
ter to General Cameron, then Secretary of War, in which was 
stated, my conviction that war could not secure union, but 
would insure separation. 

[Copy.] 

" Philadelphia, 3©th August, 1861. 
'•Dear Sir : 

*'I take the liberty of enclosing to you an article from the 'North 
American' of this date. It is from the pen of Henry Hays, Esq., a 
member of one of our oldest and most respectable families. I enclose 
it because I think it takes the true ground — that the outcries against 
the head of the War Department are as general and indefinite as they 
are boisterous and clearly malevolent. The fact that no specification,- 
are attempted, suffices to show the calumniators have knowledge o ; " 
none. The few instances sought to be adduced some time since re- 
coiled fatally on the accusers. 

" Mr. Hays and I are antipodes on the war. He thinks that only 
by war can union be restored, v/hile I am sure that war is a patent for 
separation inevitable, as Mr. Douglass well -said. Accordingly, Mr. 
Hays, early in the day, sent an application for appointment as second 
lieutenant in the regular army, enclosed to Mr. Blair, who promisee. 
to lay it before you. He forwarded a strong letter from Commodoi 
:Stewart, who has generally refused letters to any one, and who feeks 
greatly mortified that his letter did not secure Mr. Hays' appointment.. 
His friend and schoolmate, Mr. Hazlehurst, also wrote you inJiis £* 
9 



vor. Mr. Caleb Cope, Morton McMichael, John Grigg, and Evan? 
Kogers, and others, also gave letters. I have no doubt his appoint- 
ment would be a good one, and that he would make a good officer, ac- 
ceptable to the regular army as any civilian could be. I suppose 
vou would have given him the appointment it you could have given 
consideration to his application. In enclosing the within, I do so not 
only without Mr. Hay's knowledge, but I am sure very much against bis 
wish if he knew of it. I believe that the assaults on you are malevo- 
lent, and that, if any good men join in them it is from ignorance. 

" My own position is this : 1 am confident that you. or Governor 
Seward and President Davis, or any two reasonable men North and 
South, could, in a few hours, arrange terms of union which, being 
submitted to the people of both sections, would receive the support of 
a majority of both sections, and thus secure a happy reunion. I be- 
lieve a war to be certain and final dissolution. Thus believing, I look 
upon the war as a monstrous and wanton evil, and I shall continue, 
clearly and distinctly, to avow my convictions that union is practical 
hie in that way, by peace, and in no other, and I will resort to every 
honorable and legal mode to impress this conviction on the people and 
nn the Administration. I believe, further, that a continuance of this war 
will involve us in a collision with the powerful Governments of Eu- 
rope, and so exasperate each section as to render a union — a fraternal 
union — an impossibility. 

" While my personal regard for you inclines me to do you justice, 
and to stand by you against unjust assaults, I regret to find myself dif- 
fering so widely from your present action and policy as to deem its 
overthrow indispensable to the national salvation — to any union. 

"I know you will excuse my frankness in so distinctly stating my 
dissent. 

" Yours, respectfully, 
(Signed,) " VV. H. WINDER. 

" Hon. S. Cameron.'' 



♦* Washington, D. C, September 2, 1S61. 
" De-ix Sir : 

" Your letter of the 30th is at hand. 

" I regret that it was not in my power to appoint young Mr. Hays, 
who, I recollect, was highly recommended by gentlemen in whom I 
have great confidence. It is not singular that even such competent 
men as he, were overlooked, for applications came by thousands, and 
weva pressed upon me, by day and by night, by Senators and Repre- 
sentatives. When, finally, the vacancies were all filled, I was ab- 
sent from the city, on a brief visit to my home, made necessary in 
consequence of indisposition. There are now no more lieutenants to 
br. appointed, excepting such as may be selected from meritorious non<* 



commissioned officers; otherwise Mr. Hays' claims would receive fa- 
Torable consideration. 

" For your many evidences of personal friendship and respect, I 
have the highest appreciation. We have never agreed very well in 
politics, but I have never doubted that you had at heart the best inter- 
ests of the country. 

" Truly yours, 

" SIMON CAMERON. 
«« W. H. Winder, Esq., 

"Philadelphia.." 



[Copy.] 

" Philadelphia, 7th September, 1861. 
*' Dear Sir : 

"Your favor of the 2nd instant has been received, in which, in 
reference to Mr. Hays, you say, ' there are no more lieutenants to be 
appointed, otherwise Mr. Hays' claims would receive favorable atten- 
tion.' I am much gratified at this assurance, which will secure him 
an early appointment to fill any occurring vacancy. 

" The very handsome manner in which you tolerate my strongly 
differing opinion, is worthy of your liberal spirit, and is very accept- 
able to me. 

'* Yours, most respectfully, 

« W. H. WINDER. 

" Hon. Simon Cameron, 

•" Secretary of War." 

Emboldened by this frank declaration of General Cameron, 
w my personal relations with Governor Seward had always 
been friendly, I conceived that a letter from me might be re- 
ceived by him in a spirit of equal candor, and accordingly 1 
addressed him the letter above referred to. 

During the session of Congress in 1850, in which the com- 
promise measures were passed, Governor Seward and I occu- 
pied, in Washington, adjoining houses, and had much intercourse, 
and being then of the same party, though differing on the com- 
promise measures, freely discussed political subjects. In one 
(Conversation on platforms, he expressed his preference for a 



platform large and broad enough to accommodate every vari» 
ant interest, believing that in a contest with the Democratic par- 
ty, the hope of self profit, which each interest would indulge, 
would constitute it a compact army ; he relied upon some kind of 
oil, which he did not distinctly define, to lubricate the attrition 
which, after success, a rivalry should generate. 

After the passage of the compromise measures I expressed 
a strong hope that agitation would cease, as, in this compro- 
mise, the North had got pretty much everything, the mere 
change of fugitive slave bills being, in no just sense, a com- 
promise by the North. Governor Seward was very decidedly 
of the opposite opinion, and he declared his conviction in the 
most emphatic language, that from that time forward agitation 
n the fugitive slave law would go on increasing at the North 
until the line between the free and slaveholding States would be 
the line of parties, when the North would take the reins of 
power and govern the country. It seemed to me, then, so im- 
probable a prophecy, that I was blunt enough to pronounce it pre- 
posterous — an impossibility that a united South and a Demo- 
cratic North, with all the influence of the Federal and Demo- 
cratic State Governments, could fail to command votes enough 
at the North to constitute, with the South, a majority of the 
Electoral College ; that the evils patent upon such a division of 
parties had been too solemnly foretold by Washington to per- 
mit the people to become thus insane. He said he would re- 
gret such a result, but that its coming, at no very distant day, 
was inevitable. He, alas ! was the truer prophet. How far his 
expressions of regret were sincere, let his subsequent course 
attest. 

Previous to the nomination for President at the late election, 
in frequent conversations with a very devoted and very inti- 
mate friend of Governor Seward, I was strongly urged to sup- 
port 'Governor Seward for the Presidency. In reply to my de- 
claration th-.it Governor Seward's Abolition proclivities rendered 
■such a course aii impossibility to me, and, I believed, would 
garo-ve fatal to Seward s hopes, I was assure 1 that I was very 



greatly in error ; that Governor Seward's nomination was cer- 
tain, his election beyond a peradventure, and his re-election 
certain by unanimity at the South — his warmest supporters. 

I replied, if this will be so, it must be from the adoption of 
a policy very different from that which now he so vehemently 
urges. I took occasion, subsequently, editorially, in " The 
Pennsylvanian," to give what I understood, from these conversa- 
tions, to be Governor Seward's programme, and enclosed it in 
a letter to this gentleman, as being the views of Governor Se- 
ward, as I understood them from him. 

" Philadelphia, 10th February, 1861. 
"My Dear Sir: 

" In my solicitude to avert that most dreaded of calamities — a sep- 
aration of our friendly Union into two hostile sections, I sometimes 
engage in the contests between the Republican wings. As an in- 
stance, I enclose you some remarks I have made on Greeley's at- 
tempt to defeat a settlement. 

" This man seems to me to have but two mainsprings of action — 
vanity and spite. They flare out in all that he says or does, and a 
post-mortem examination will surely disclose the great prominence of 
a white liver. 

*.« I hardly suppose that you will concur in all my Democratic 
views expressed in the enclosed, but in many of them I believe you 
will. 

" From the action of Mr. Weed, and, still more, from the innate 
kindliness of your nature, I assume that your patriotism predominates 
over party, and that your aspirations are first for an harmonious union 
of the States. 

" With great respect, I am, most sincerely, yours, 

" W. H. WINDER. 
" R. M. Blatchford, Esq , New York." 



[From the Pennsylvanian, of February, 1861.] 

"GREELEY ON COMPROMISE. 

" The 'fighting Rob' of the Tribune, who noio, for the selfish and 
sinister purpose of crushing Seward, Weed & Co., resists the * yield- 
ing of one inch ' of the Chicago platform to save the Union, and who 
denounces all compromisers as traitors, thus spoke through the Tri- 
bune on the 5th August, 1850 : 



6 

'A Sign. — The developements of public sentiment and the fruiff 
of agitation in the Territories themselves, appeared concurrently al- 
most certain to secure the non-extension of slavery thereto, even in 
the absence of any Congressional prohibition. Our opinion of the 
propriety of the Wilmot proviso has not changed one hair, but the 
necessity for it is now far less than what it has been, while the 
probability of enacting it appears to have receded into the vague fu- 
ture. Now, therefore, WE are willing to COMPKOMISE, and take 
HALF our right rather than continue a controversy from which we 
can anticipate no good, but apprehend much evil.' 

"This was 'fighting Bob ' Greeley's doctrine of compromise when 
Seward, V\eed& Co. were opposed to a compromise. He went for 
compromise to crush Seward, Weed & Co., and on that occasion suc- 
ceeded ; his compromise included the hated fugitive slave Jaw, and 
was passed in spite of the utmost efforts of Sewaid, Weed & Co. to 
defeat it. 

" Greeley, now a ' fighting Bob,' has uniformly advocated the abo- 
lition of the army and navy, as being a national burden, solely for tin- 
benefit and advantage of the slaveholding States, and he was always 
most unequivocally against war with foreign nations. So long as he 
supposed that Seward, Weed & Co. were uncompromising for the en- 
forcement of the laws, he was faithful to his non-combatant policy, 
and was loud and frequent in his declarations of letting the Southern 
States go in peace. By taking this positi »n, he thought he had got 
the coercionists — Seward, Weed & Co., — on the flank. But their sa- 
gacity disappointing this expectation, Greeley instantly assumed the 
character of ' fighting Bob,' has become as foul-mouthed as Thersitcs, 
and as bloody-minded as such ineffable cowards usually are. Greeley, 
like the Irish pig, must be driven the way one does not wish him to go. 

"Again, and still later, so long as Seward and Weed continued rad- 
ical, Greeley continued conservative, compromising. The Tribune, 
vtill harping on my daughter — the defeat of Sewaid — had, previous to 
the nomination, the following shot at radicals: 'From information 
from unquestionable sources' it said that ' if a radical candidate (such 
as Seward, Chase, Wade, Lincoln,) be insisted upon at » hicago, a 
large defection may be expected in Pennsylvania and New Jersey 
among the conservative portion of the opposition.' Thus the Tri- 
bune continued the advocate of compromise and compromise candi- 
dates, (Bates, Bell, and McLean,) and the bitter foe of radicals. So 
effectually did the Tribune intend to lay Seward out cold, that it in- 
cluded in the abovfc anathema all radicals likely to have Seward in 
their Cabinet, and as Mr. Lincoln was one of the denounced, he can 
judge how far Greeley's support of his nomination was honest. He 



•annol shut his eyes lo the fact that he owes the support of Greeley 
exclusively to Greeley's still more bitter hostility to Seward, and not 
at all to any confidence in or regard for himself. Greeley sold to 
Giddings his compromise principles, and adopted his own anathema- 
tized radicalism, receiving, as pay therefor, the head of Seward. 

"Governor Seward's sagacity showed him clearly that now wa- 
the time for compromise ; that the Republican victory, in connection 
with congressional representation, under the new census, would make 
the free States so immensely predominant that any future control of 
the Federal Government by the slave States was a clear impossibility. 
To Seward's mind the case presented itself simply thus : — His object. 
in inaugurating a sectional contest for the control of the Federal Gov- 
ernment was to check what he deemed an undue influence of the 
South in the councils of the nation. The late victory and the census 
render the accomplishment of his purpose a certainty, and there is no 
longer any beneficial result possible from that sectional strife whicli 
Washington so solemnly warned us would inevitably sever the Union- 
In addition to which Governor Seward sees, as do all sensible men, 
that while the Republican parly elected its President through unhap- 
py divisions of that overwhelming majority opposed to it, yet the re- 
sult of the election clearly showed that nearly two-thirds of the peo- 
ple of the United States had declared against the Republican party, 
and in favor of the South's claims. And further, that this over- 
whelming majority was fully sustained by the emphatic opinion of 
that tribunal which the Constitui ion itself has made the umpire; that, 
in fact, all that the Republican party had to countenance its doctrine- 
is the chance or bogus election of Lincoln ; all other authorities, inclu- 
ding the Supreme Court, being against the Chicago platform; and thus 
to persevere with chance-gotten power, to disregard these, would be 
treason of the rankest class. 

He is perfectly aware that, under any and every concession by the 
free States, including the extremest doctrines enunciated in the Dree. 
Scott decision, nearly the entire territory now owned by the United 
States must infallibly be free States, and that to resist ' surrender of an 
ioch' in concession, would be to dissolve the Union, involving all its un- 
told horrors, to gain not an atom more than will certainly be gained by 
war, even if successful, would in reality gain nothing which would 
not be equally secure under the extremest construction asked by the 
South. But there is one motive stronger with • fighting Bob' Gree- 
ley than all the averting of dissolution and civil war, and that is the 
killing off of Seward and Weed. Nothing under the sun is more ab- 
solutely certain than that if Seward and Weed had taken the ' yield 
not an inch' ground, the Tribune batteries would promptly have 
b«en armed with the Armstrong artillery of conservatism, and Sewarc: 
and Weed would have been powdered. His rage and mortification at 



this unexpected stand of Seward and Weed are knawing fVis vftafe> 
Hid in his contortions he will most probably mortally wound himself. 
These manifest inconsistencies and this daring disregard of popular in- 
telligence are in entire conformity with that spirit of falsehood which 
is nature with Greeley as is odor with the onion, and both are in per- 
petual exhalation. We now close these remarks with the following 
graphic picture of Greeley, Beecher, Cheever & Co. : — * Liberty's 
ministers are the fellest pirates that ever swept the earth with desola- 
tion, filling it with the cries of distress and bereavement.' " 



"New York, February 14,1861. 
" My Dear Sir : 

" I thank you for your letter and its enclosure. It expresses pretty 
much my views. I am for preserving the Union by some concession,, 
if necessary. I hope enough will be done to keep in the border 
States. A convention would, I doubt not, settle trie whole matter 
iatisfactorily. 

" Very truly, yours, &c. 

"R. M. BLATCHFORD. 
" W. H. Winder, Esq." 

The statement of Governor Seward that he would " give hi& 
head for a football if peace and satisfaction to the South- was 
not had in sixty days," all his prophecies, at an early date, of 
an early peace, I understood to be predicated upon expectations 
■tf inaugurating the foregoing policy. The Albany Evening- 
-Journal was earnest for compromise-, solemnly warning people of 
the terrible future in case of a dis-iregard of this advice. I wa& 
aware of General Scott's letter — the- one read by Mr. Van 
fturen. How I learned its contents I ©annot now recall, for at 
the time I learned it I did not suppose it was a secret. Mr Se- 
ward had distinctly stated his readiness " to sacrifice party to 
the Union." 

But the Abolition faction, having an ally down deep in 
the heart of Abraham Lincoln, Mr. Seward had his choice 
to abandon his peaceful policy or 1ms position in the Cabi- 
net. All who know Governor Seward, know full well that a 
subsidence into private life is to him a greater horror thaEt 



9 

a descent into the grave itself. This feeling was intensifiedl 
by the idea of Greeley and his friends monopolizing power 
and patronage, which, together with the electric shock of Sum- 
ter, that brought, apparently, the whole North to its feet, 
to be instantly precipitated on the South — carried him, against 
his convictions, I believed, into the war camp. 

The battle of Bull Run had taken place, and a stagger had 
been given to overweening confidence. In August I had the 
correspondence with General Cameron, then Secretary of War, 
already given. 

My object in writing the letter to Governor Seward was to 
induce him to resume his old position, which I hoped might 
bring about a reconstruction, even at that late hour, or at any 
rate leave an opening for such a junction of the States as, in 
the language of Mr. Adams, is the only Union that can be per- 
manently valuable — " the Union brought about by the gravita- 
tion of affinity." 

This letter will suffice, also, to explain the mystery why I was 
not released when General Cameron, whose name alone appeared 
on the record of the Bastile as the authority for my imprison- 
ment, wrote to Governor Seward disavowing all knowledge of 
my arrest, and requesting my release. Having me confined on 
General Cameron's record, he kept me imprisoned to punish me 
for the wound it inflicted on his amour propre, but conceals 
himself behind General Cameron's record, to avoid the issue of 
that letter, which caused my long confinement. 

[Copy.] 
f 
"Philadelphia, 10th September, 1861. 
' ; Dear Sir : 

" I have taken the liberty of addressing you the accompanying 
communication because there is so much of humanity about you as to 
attract even those who revolt at many doctrines you have enunciated, 
and because I believe, if you felt that you had the power, you would 
seek a peaceful restoration of the Union. Your political destruction 
is one of the aims of those men who unfortunately find access to the 
confidence of the President, and, so far, have overruled your efforts or 
your wishes to that end. If you could nerve yourself to the fight you 



10 

could crush those men, and save your country from the horrors of 
war and of that dissolution towards which all the aims of those men 
tend whatever they may profess. 

" I teel that 1 have been bold in speech, but not half as much so as 
I am in heart and purpose, to do all I can for the restoration of a fra- 
ternal Union, which 1 deem vital to the interests of both s-ections. I 
do not mean to assert that the South has been exempt from blame ; 
but being the weaker, all her eriors can and will be remedied on the 
restoration of the Union. 

"I should be gratified to learn that you receive this communicatioR 
in good part, and still more gratified to learn that you look with a lk- 
voring purpose on any practicable scheme of a peaceful Union, and 
that you will clear your skirts of the diabolical spirit which actuates 
those men who seem to hate you almost equally with the South. 
I am, most respectfully and truly, yours, 

" W. H. WINDER. 
M Hon. Wm. H. Seward." 

The following is the communication referred to in the letter 
just given : 

"" Dear Sir : 

" While, perhaps, I may, in submitting to your consideration the 
following suggestions, incur the charge of presumption, I am very 
sure that I am entitled to credit for frankness, sincerity, and right mo- 
tive — a deep and absorbing desire to preserve in perpetuity a consti- 
tutional, fraternal union of all these States, and that your candor will 
attribute to me only this motive. 

•• I address you because, from the evidence of circumstances, 1 be- 
lieve that, deep down in the profound of your soul, you will find an 
approval of them; and, meaning no oflvnce, in saying that much of 
the responsibility of bringing to a certain stage the terrible crisis which 
now quakes our political existence attaches to you, I yet believe that, 
if at that stage of the crisis, you had had control — had been the Ex- 
ecutive—the storm would have blown over with little damage, yet 
clearing the atmosphere of the pestilential vapors which threatened 
the life of the Union. 

" But at that stage bolder and infinitely bad men, your bitter ene- 
mies as they are the unadulterated enemies of the Constitution, the 
Union, and the rights of man, thrust you and your better purpose 
aside, and, gaining access to the Executive, poured into the porchea 
of his ear that cursed juice of hellebore — Abolitionism — which, down 
in the recesses of his soul found genial soil, whence sprouted this un- 
happy war, by which the Abolition wedge is being driven through 



11 

'he Constitution, pushing hopelessly assunder the fragments of the 
Union, and, by mad action, inviting collision with the strong powers 
of Euiope. But briefly and without argument to the purpose of 
these suggestions. 

" Senator Wade spoke truly in the Senate chamber, when he de- 
clared his conviction that the whole southern mind labored under the 
firm belief that the accession of the Kepublican party to power was 
imminently dangerous to their peace, dignity, and most intimate insti- 
tutions : fears which he declared to be not well founded. 

" Senator Davis, apparently to meet this declaration, and to bring 
about the happy condition of affairs which would exist, if Senator 
Wade's disclaimers were true, made the strongest appeals to him and 
his associates. He said that " fraternal feelir.g was all the South asks 
to perpetuate a Union. For himself he believed it did exist in the 
northern heart. Submit to our people the evidence that hostility 
does not exist, and 1 feel that all this bitterness will cease;'' because 
where fraternal feeling dwells, intentional injustice could not; and ^o 
solicitous for " an excuse to remain in the Union '' waj the South, he- 
added, that, " if the ttepublican party would, in good faith, offer the 
Crittenden compromise it would be received as a sufficient evidence 
of fraternal feeling, though it fell far short of their constitutional 
rights, as expounded by the Supreme Court." To this generous and 
earnest appeal the Republican Senators sat in sullen, frowning silence, 
and indignantly voted down the olive branch — the Crittenden com- 
promise — thus showing, as clearly as they could, their purpose inex- 
orably to carry out the Republican programme. 

'* Mr. Webster has truly said, the purposes of a party are known by 
the outspeakings of its leaders, and it must justly be held accountable 
for what they promulgate, if it continues its countenance and support 
to these men. He says there is no other authoritative exponent. Let 
us see, then, ;he state of affairs. 

" The ' irrepressible conflict' had been nursed from the date of the 
compromise of IS50 until it culminated in the Chicago Convention. At 
3. previous convention, before the virus had become so strong, when 
Fremont was nominated, a northern man, so moderate, so cautious, so 
law-abiding, so eminent in position as President Fillmore, had deemed 
it a duty to proclaim to the whole American people that the principles 
of that party were so in violation of the Constitution, so imminently 
threatening to the just and vital rights of the South, that the election of 
Fremont would be a just, as it would prove the inevitable, cause of dis- 
solution. 

" %fi fortiori of the nominee of the Chicago platform, northern men 
of every station in life and position declared that such an election could 
have no other result than separation, as a just and necessary conse- 
quence — an exit ihrough the portals of the Union being the only safety 
tor the South- When a strong man, an enemy, threatens to strike you. 



12 

it will be too late to wait to see if he will do it. Assured sirfety can 
be found only in an anticipating separation. 

*.' Thus, when Mr. Lincoln said ' the States cannot exist half free, 
half slave,' and that * slavery must be placed where the public mind 
shall rest satisfied that it is in process of extinction,' and when he urges 
the equality of the black and white race9, and that ' artificial burdens 
must be lifted from the shoulders of all men ;' when Governor Seward 
exclaims, • with this victory [Lincoln's election} comes the downfall of 
slavery,' and that 'one Rebublican Administraiion will suffice to de- 
stroy it,' and when he certifies, under his own hand, that he has care- 
fully read and approved the * Helper Crisis ;' when Senator Wilson ex- 
claims, ' We have our heel on the neck of slavery, and will not raise i ; 
while one slave remains in bonds ;' when Thurlow Weed, the able al- 
ter ego of Governor Seward, certifies • that the circulation in the free 
States of the ' Helper Crisis ' will insure the election of a Republican, 
and the passing away of slavery ;' when all these black threats hung 
over the South, who saw all the northern State Governments — legisla- 
tive, executive, and judicial — banded together in marked subserviency to 
ihe party of these men, with personal liberty bills covering their statute 
books, with repeals of all acts of amity, with excommunication from all 
seligious association, it had cause for apprehension, and little induce- 
ment to a continued Union. But such was its hereditary attachment to 
the Union and its old glories, that so long as the Federal Government 
remained a barrier between it and the unfriendly party of the North, it 
was desirous of remaining in the Union ; but, should the Federal pow- 
er come into the hands of this party, already in the possession of all 
the Northern States, it could see no safety except in the escape through 
the portals of the Union. So said thousands at the North itself. 

This most dread calamity — more dread than all others together which 
have ever fallen on our people, in the wrath of Heaven did come, and 
the curse of the Lord, Abraham Lincoln, is upon us.* 

" Staggered at this evidence of hostility, while preparing for escape, 
the South yet parleyed with this party, to try and get some reasonable 
assurances that it would not carry out its threatened desolating pro- 
gramme ; but that, having power, it should give security that the South, 
remaining in the Union should not have her rights, peace, and dignity in- 
vaded. This has been steadily, haughtily refused, until the South came to 
the conclusion it was safer out of the Union, with open hostility, than tore- 
main in and be smothered. I do not hesitate to make the assertion, 
from personal knowledge, that up to the hour he left the Senate cham- 
ber, Jefferson Davis was a better Union man than would be the whole 
Anti-Slavery Republican party, rolled into one man. 

* This sentence was expunged from the copy sent to Governor Seward, not because 
it was undeserved, nor from any doubt of his concurrence, but because it was hardly 
eomme il faut for a Cabinet Minister to let it be *aid. So many persons have read nay 
copy, seized by Governor Seward, from which it was not erased, that to avoid a 
charge of garbling, I replace it with this note of explanation. 



13 

liitttder to vindicate myself in asserting ihr.t the South was pre-cmi* 
Viently attached to the Union, I will not enter into the history of New 
England in order to show that she was last to meet the foe, but the first 
lo strike a friend ; nor to show that "the Massachusetts School, '* from 
1300, has been uniform and consistent in favor of the ri«ht, and in favor 
of the practice of State Sovereignty and Secession, and that no one 
more strongly advocated it than did Mr. Everett, who now so conveni- 
ently turns his back upon all his past life— but I will refer you to what 
the South has borne for the benefit of 'he North. 

•riie North furnished nothing to die South which it could not get else- 
where : "it might be sunk in the sea and would not be missed by the 
South. The North gets from the South nothing which it could gel else- 
where. The North could not find customers as substitutes for the 
South. The South could find customers for everything it has without 
reference to the North. 

The North has been incapable of taking care of itself, without heavy- 
duties for protection. The South has always been able to take care of 
itself without such protection. To illustrate : A duty of 30 per cent, 
on five millions of cloths, raises the price of the fifty millions made in 
the United States 30 per cent., all of which the South pays to the 
North— that is, it pays the North 30 percent, more than it would have 
to pay to Europe lot the same goods. The same of Iron. Thus, by 
a moderate calculation, the South has paid to the North, since the for- 
mation of the Constitution, several thousand millions of dollars. 
Besides which, it has allowed an absolute, exclusive monopoly of ship- 
building and the coasting trade, and has allowed fish and other bounties. 
Suppose the South had required the expenses of Government to be 
paid by direct taxation and free-trade^ it would have saved vast 
millions, and the North would have remained comparatively destitute of 
manufactures, and her population would not have exceeded that of the 
South, which up to 1810, both black and white increased at the rate of 
one-third in ten years — the North only one-fifth. 

Let any man picture to himself die relative position of North and 
South had there been absolute free-trade in all things, ship-building and 
coasting trade included, and let him contrast it with the present relative 
condition, and then let him candidly acknowledge the mountainous in- 
debtedness of the North to the patriotism, love of Union, and fraternal 
feeling which has characterized the South from the beginning* 

The South paid annually to the North at least five hundred millions, 
«nd she paid the entire proceeds of her cotton, rice and tobacco— of her 
naval stores and lumber — of her grain and cattle sold — of her minerals, 
&c; these amounts from the fifteen States, are fully equal to five hun- 
dred millions a year, including the money spent in visiting the North, 
in sending her children \o our colleges, legal, medical and classical. 

In a separation, this m< ney properly expended, would augment im- 
mensely the cities of the South, giving advantages which would rewdef 
-a resort 4o the North for anyth'ng unnecessary 



14 

In a word, Union is of the first importance to the Northern pocket , 
which it fills as it depletes that of the South. 

And yet, notwithstanding the manifold advantages to the North, and 
disadvantages to the South, among which, as is important to be noticed, 
is the fact that the North has the power and has shown the will to 
build a Northern Kail Road to the Pacific, by the issue of hundreds of 
millions of United States bonds, by the donation to the Road of alter- 
nate sections of thirty miles in width of the laud along the Hoad, and by 
means of a Homestead Bill to give Northern men and strangers the re- 
mainder of the National domain. By the issues of other hundred of 
millions of bonds, for the needed and needless improvements ol North- 
ern rivers and harbors — all to build up the North ; while the South, 
thus stripped of all its share of the public domain, is, in addition, to pay 
it« share of the hundred of millions expended for the Pacific Rail Road, 
improvement of rivers and harbors, and a tribute of from 10 to 30 per 
<;ent. on all manufactures. These are some of the inequalities of the 
Union. 

But notwithstanding all these very serious drawbacks, the South has 
contentedly remained, satisfied in good brotherhood, free institutions, 
and a Government to command respect. But it requires itself that res- 
pect in the Union which it gives to the North. 

And I now close, leaving much unsaid, by stating that the end and 
object of this communication is to state my conviction, that if proper 
persons be selected to open negotiations with the Confederates, that 
terms could be agreed upon for union, which being submitted to the 
people of both scetions, would receive the sanction of a majority of 
both sections. I feel emboldened to say so, by the terms in which 
President liavis expresses his willingness to entertain negotiations for a 
settlement. The terms are so broad, as would seem, they were inten- 
tionally made to include negotiation for a return to the Union.* 

I know that negotiations are opposed by the Simmers, Wilsons, 
Wades, Fcssendens, Chandlers, and others of that ilk— crimson-dyed 
Abolitionists, with no spark of a genuine Union, Constitutional feeling — 
because peace and restoration of the Union is death to them. If nego- 
tiations fail to bring peace, what harm ? VVe will so far have vindi- 
cated our cause as to bring the issue to an undisguised and unequivocal 
focus, when the real difference being before the world, a true and just 
judgment may be had, and then if need be war, coercion cun be used. 
But if negotiations, which may bring peace and Union, be denied us, 
and war urged, and in its progress it shall bring us into collision with 
great European Powers, ending With final separation, and leaving the 
nation bleeding at every pore, exhausted, overwhelmed In debt, and 
every family tearful by bereavement, will these men, the Blairs, Sum- 
ners, Wilsons, Ohandlersj Greeleys, Wades, &c, be able to indemnify 

* The reply of President Davis to the Committee of the Maryland Legislature, 
sent to him simultaneously with another to Mj, Lin.colu, to induce them to open nego- 
tiations for an adjustment of diifficultieg. 



is 

(he country for all these evils, the fruits of their malignant contrivance ". 
If they cannot, had we not better first try that other inexpensive, chris- 
tian course towards our fellow countrymen, who, we believe, act under 
much misapprehension, which being dispelled, may lead to peace and 
Union. 

Let every one advocate war, or negotiation for a peaceful Union, as 
he wishes to incur or avoid the weighty responsibilities we have above- 
adverted to. 

In regard to the relative manifestations by the North and by the 
South, what are the facts ? The whole earth has been dinned by the 
noise of our press, in trumpeting the marvellous, unprecedented uprising 
of the North in favor of the Union ; and truly and most justly is if 
stated, that with the exception of that class which herd with the Sum- 
ners and Garrisons, the Wilsons and Greeleys, die Wades, the Chand- 
lers and the Phillips, the North is sincerely and truly a unit in it* 
desire for the perpetuation of the Union. But how — by what means ? 
Ii v war? Widi a population, in die non-seceding States of twenty-four 
millions, after the most wonderful efforts we have succeeded in getting, 
about 225,000 men for the army. Of these, if I be well informed 
from one-half to two-thirds are foreigners, leaving about, 80,000 Ameri- 
can soldiers. Of these, more than half enlisted from sheer starvation, 
leaving at most about 40,000 American soldiers. Of the foreigners, a 
very large majority may be said to have enlisted from necessity and 
want of employment. If we relied upon the same class of men which 
•.'onstitute the Southern Army, we could not raise a volunteer force ol 
100,000 men from the whole 24 millions. 

*' The South has made no trumpeting to the world, calling on it to ad- 
mire its wonderful uprising, but with a while population of about four 
millions — one-sixth of the population of the adhering States — with a less 
proportion of money, anil a still less proportionate ability to equip and 
provide for a proportionate number, it has now under drill about four 
hundred thousand men, which, in proportion, would require two million 
four hundred thousand by the North. What mean these figures ? They 
can have but one meaning, and that is that the South feels to the quick 
(hat this war, as waged for unconditional submission, if successful, is a 
fatal knell to its peace, dignity, and salety, to a degree rendering exter- 
mination less hateful. Nothing short of a deep, absorbing, overwhelm- 
ing, abiding conviction that such would be the result, could account for 
die attitude of the South, which, through its President, has vainly of- 
fered to negotiate for settlement of difficulties, in terms and language 
which might include Union. What mean the meagre figures of the 
northern army, with the great population, the immense wealth, and the 
undoubted patriotism of the people, and their desire to perpetuate the 
Union ? There can be but one meaning. It is that they have no con- 
fidence that a ruthless, vindictive, relentless war, carried on with a press 
spluttering incessant hate and calumny against the South, until all Chris- 
tendom has expressed itself shocked and horrified at the demon spirit 



m 

manifested, can ever restore an harmonious Union — a Union of hands, a 
RJnion of hearts — a Union of States. 

" What but principle, dearer than life, can embolden four millions of 
people, with a questionable population in their midst of equal number, 
what could induce them to brave the full power of twenty-four millions 
in immediate contact? It must be a principle, to maintain which, is 
worth more than all the harm your million of men authorized to be 
raised, can do tbsm. 

" They perceive in this war, or, what is tantamount, they believe they 
perceive, in this war, a purpose of subjugation of the niost degrading 
character, such as is incompatible with the existence of honorable men, 
and I have no doubt the actions and purposes of these incomparable 
wretches, Sumner, Wilson & Co., are of a character which should ren- 
der life undesirable, and these are the men who control public affairs, 
and who, linked with the Blairs, are fast driving this country into a col- 
lision with the wreat powers of Europe, whose condemnation of our 
course is most apparent. We place, ourselves, obstructions hi the way 
of their prosperity, to an extent that will permit no forbearance, of ev- 
ery right they may construe to be theirs. The three hundred million 
dollars raw material of cotton, tobacco, &c, sent to Europe, when man- 
ufactured sells for over one thousand millions of dollars. There is 
that temptation to Europe to find excuse to disregard our blockade, 
•Other inducements, of not less import, might be mentioned. 

" A peaceful adjustment and reunion would consign these infinitely 
wicked men to retirement, perhaps to a juste* doom ; and because they 
prefer power, their own safety, and the glutting of their own ignoble 
vengeance on the South, they furiously urge a war which will certainly 
-'•ost us Union, besides entailing all the widespread, dread, and enduring 
evils of war. 

" 1 assert it, as a fact beyond contradiction, that full four-fifths 
of the American people would have had an harmonious Union tm- 
der the Crittenden compromise, and that the responsibility of de- 
feating it and of causing the ivar, Tests wholly and solely upon 
the infamous conduct of these men. The South distinctly expressed 
its willingness to accept the Crittenden compromise. The whole of 
the northern Democracy* the Bell-Everett party, and hundreds of thous- 
ands of Republicans — not Anti-Slavery — by petitions in countless mini 
bers and in the strongest language of appeal and instruction, desired 
Congress to adopt it, or, at least, to allow the people themselves to pass 
upon it. Thus there were clearly four-fifths in favor of a measure 
which bore peace and healitfgon its wings. The fact that the South was 
willing to accept so small an evidence of northern good-will and remain 
in the Union, is conclusive evidence of its strong Union feeling. And 
yet these men, who have done all these wrongs, now again foibid the 
North and South communing .peacefully, lest a Union should JoIlon\ 
*oith their inevitable disgrace, and probable destruction-. 



17 

<4 The people have declined to swell the army. Let this silent voice 
teach the propriety of negotiations. If this still small voice of mo- 
nition he disregarded, a speedy, deep, lasting remorse will overtake ih, 
beneath collisions with foreign poweis. 

«• 1 have ihe honor to be, very respectfully, your ohedient servant. 

«W. H. WINDER. 
' Hon. Wm. H. Seward, Washington. 

"Philadelphia, 10th September, 1861." 



On the 11th — immediately, no doubt, on its receipt — he tele 
graphed to the Marshal, who showed me the despatch — 
"Send W. H. Winder to Fort Lafayette. W. II. Seward" 
— he then being ignorant that, on the night of the 10th. 
I had been arrested. On the morning of the 12th, learning of 
my previous arrest, he telegraphed again to the Marshal : — 
" Send W. H. Winder to Fort Lafayette, New York, and de- 
liver him into the custody, of Colonel Martin Burke. Send the 
papers and evidence here. He is reported to have been ar- 
rested by detective Franklin. W. H. Seward, Sec. of State. 
The Mayor of Philadelphia, who furnished me with the abow 
copy of the second despatch after my release, told me I was in 
error throughout in supposing I was imprisoned by Genen\! 
Cameron. He said it was Governor Seward's doings ; and ho 
added, the moment he had read the copy of my letter to Se- 
ward, he knew that was the trouble, and such I understood him 
was the conclusion to which others came who saw my papers, 
and concurrent testimony, from many sources, confirm this. 

On the evening 10th, between 7 and 8 o'clock, I was arrested 
by detective Franklin, put in a station-house cell, and confined 
there all night. He showed me a warrant, issued by the Mayor 
of Philadelphia, induced by a despatch from General Andrew 
Porter, Provost Marshal of the city of Washington, direct jljlt 
it. When I was brought before Mayor Henry in the morning, 
he told me, in the presence of detective Franklin, that he had 
given him express orders not to arrest me that day unless he 
could do so before half past two o'clock, in order that I migh- 
have time conveniently to get bail. But this man chose p.n- 
3 



18 

posely to disregard this peremptory order, as I was at my of- 
fice or hotel the whole day. He knew where to find me, but 
would not, his object being to prevent my being at large to in- 
terfere with his ransacking my office, from which, besides my 
papers relating to politics, he took books, pictures, also letters 
having no shadow of relation to politics, but referring to the 
most sacred secrets of other parties , these also, and many oth- 
er things, were taken, wholly unjustifiably, even supposing the 
right of search to exist. I was arrested in the armory* of a 
company to which I was attached and taken to my chambers, my 
person there searched by detective Franklin, and my papers and 
all my keys taken from me, except the key of my office, which 
I held in my hand ; my trunk, closets, &c, were searched, ev- 
ery scrap of paper taken, though not one of them in any man- 
ner referred to politics, as he saw by reading. After shutting 
me up in the station house, he proceeded to my office, broke 
open the door or picked the lock, and had an examination of 
my papers ; for my clerk found a piece of candle in my room 
next morning when he went there, and other evidences of a 
night visit. He also found an officer there, who went on with 
the examination of my papers, &c. On leaving that day, Franklin 
told him he had better not come to the office, while they held 
possession. For about two weeks they held continued, exclu- 
sive possession, ransacking safe, chests, drawers, cases, &c, and 
a collection of papers of more than thirty years, violating the 

* Under the excitement caused by the alleged marching of the Confederates upon 
the Capital, this and other companies were organized to resist a possible attack on 
this city, which it was supposed might be attempted, if the Capital should fall into Con - 
federate hands. In its organization, in the most unqualified terms, it was declared 
that it was solelj for the defence of the city of Philadelphia. Although I discredited 
in every way all rumors of any intended invasion, yet willing to show my readme?* 
to perform all my duties as a citizen, and opposed alike to invasion by either party 
I joined this company ; having thus manifested my purpose to do my whole duty, I 
claimed, and declared, on all proper occasions, my determination to exercise all the 
rights of a eitizen. When, subsequently, a consultation was held, to see if the mem- 
bers would volunteer to go wherever ordered, I distinctly declined, on the ground of 
opposition to the war, and as the tender of the company never was made, I suppo?-* 
that a iarge proportion of them declined. 



19 

sanctity of private correspondence during all that time, under 
pretence of hunting treasonable matter during the few months 
preceding. They allowed access to my private papers to re- 
porters of newspapers, for the purpose of publication ; and false, 
garbled, malicious slanders were published as the alleged con- 
tents of such letters. At the end of two weeks my clerk was 
allowed to take possession of the office; they, however, doubt- 
less, holding keys for access at pleasure. They carried off let- 
ter-books, letters to me, copies of my letters, a large book hav- 
ing pasted in it extracts from newspapers of matter written by 
me. Among other letters, they stole copies of my letters to 
Cameron and Seward, and General Cameron's letter to me.. 
They took my Army Dictionary and Navy Register, my Gene- 
ological Tree, pictures and autograph letters. From so very 
large a collection of papers as I had, it is impossible for me to 
determine, with any certainty, the full amount of the robbery. 
On the morning of the 11th September I was taken to the 
Mayor's office, when the Mayor told me that, on signing a bond 
for $200 in my own recognizance to appear in October, he 
would discharge me. There was no charge made, no questions 
asked me, no testimony offered. I signed the bond, supposing 
there was an end of the matter, when to my surprise the May- 
or said to me that, in compliance with the request of the Uni- 
ted States District Attorney, I hand you over to the Marshal, 
whose deputy is here to take charge of you — he pointing to an 
individual present as the deputy — who immediately took charge 
of me, saying that I would have a hearing before the Commis- 
sioner that afternoon at four o'clock. In the meantime he con- 
fined me in Moyamensing prison. At four o'clock J was at the 
Commissioner's office, with my counsel, George W. Biddle 
Esq., for whom I had sent. At the opening, the District At- 
torney, Coffey, stated that they had been unable to procure 
the expected evidence, but that reports of my conversations had 
reached his ears, and he wished the hearing postponed until 
the 13th, at four o'clock, to give him time to hunt up such evi- 
dence. Notwithstanding this confession of destitution of evi- 



20 

dence to justify my arrest, and the flimsy pretext of hoping to 
hunt up reports of my conversations, the Commissioner, instead 
of discharging me, granted the delay, and recommitted me to 
Moyamensing, and the Marshal gave strict injunctions to allow 
no one from outside to see me, although several other State 
prisoners there confined were allowed to go about outside in the 
neighborhood. 

On the afternoon of the 13th, at the time appointed, my 
counsel and I were at the office of the Commissioner. Attor- 
ney Coffey kept us waiting an hour before he made his appear- 
ance. This delay was, doubtless, designed to allow me no time 
to take out a writ of habeas corpus before I could be hurried 
off to New York, as had been determined on. On coming in, 
Attorney Coffey stated to the Commissioner that the paper 
which he held in his hand would render any further action be- 
fore him unnecessary, and he desired my discharge by the 
Commissioner, in order that the directions in the paper, which 
lie handed to the Commissioner, might be carried into effeet. 
That paper purported to be a despatch from S. Cameron, Sec- 
retary of War, and was in these words : 

" Washington, September 11, 1801. 

" George A. Coffey, U. S. District Attorney: 

" Have telegraphed Marshal Milward to arrest Win. H. Winder, 
siid transfer him to Fort Lafayette. 

S. CAMERON, Secretary of War." 

The Marshal was present, but he produced to the Commit- 
truois no despatch such as above referred to, and I have every 
reasm to believe that he never received any such despatch. 

Yet a District Attorney, upon this reputed telegraphic in- 
formation that the Secretary had sent such an order, but which 
order he knew had never reached the Marshal, demanded of 
the Commissioner my release from his charge, in order that I 
might be incarcerated, upon the sole authority of a reputed tel- 
egraphic despatch that such an order had been telegraphed. 



21 

The Commissioner, without a word of comment, discharged the 
case. 

It will be seen that the date of this reputed despatch from 
the Secretary of War, S. Cameron, is the 11th of September, 
and received doubtless on that day, and was probably the 
authority and inducement of Attorney Coffey to request the 
Mayor to turn me over to the Commissioner for examination. In 
expectation of being able to produce evidence giving such color 
to a charge as to authorize the Commissioner to bind me over for 
trial, Attorney Coffey said -nothing about it at the hearing on 
the afternoon of the 11th, and, unwilling to abandon the prose- 
cution, if such color of charge could be produced, he obtained 
a postponement until the afternoon of the 13th instant, at 
which time his hunt for criminatory evidence was barren of re- 
sults. Although two days had elapsed since the receipt of the 
notification that S. ■'Cameron had " telegraphed Marshal Mil- 
ward to arrest W. JEI. Winder, and transfer him to Fort Lafay- 
ette," yet no suck crdcr ivas produced by Marshal Milward, 
Notwithstanding this remarkable fact, the Attorney could re- 
concile it with .his sense of duty, upon mere telegraphic report 
that an order had been issued, illegal even if issued, to propose 
to a United States Commissioner to join him in a violation of 
the rights of a citizen. It is well worthy of notice that no or- 
der, real or forged, of any land, has ever been received by 
.Marshal Milward from General Cameron, Secretary of War, 
for my imprisonment or arrest. They have no show or shadow 
of authority, save and except, the reputed despatch, produced 
by Attorney Coffey ; and General Cameron, under his own 
hand, explicitly denies all knowledge of this one to Mr. Coffey. 
It was evidently a manufactured despatoh. I wrote to a friend 
in Washington to call at the telegraph office and examine the 
original manuscript of this despatch, to see in whose handwrit- 
ing it was, and who and by what authority such persons used 
the name of the Secretary of War to arrest persons in distant 
places, not only without the order of the Secretary of War, but 
without notifying him of such a purpose, and never reporting 



22 

the arrest after being made ; so that, the Secretary of War, in 
my case, seven months after my arrest and imprisonment under 
color of his name, was in entire ignorance of this fact. The 
reply to the inquiry at the telegraph office was, that if such a 
despatch had been sent from that office, the party bringing it 
to the office had waited until the message had been sent, and, a3 
in all other such cases, had demanded and received back the 
written order — thus covering up the tracks of the forger, if 
forged, or concealing the author, whoever he might be. I was 
also informed that there was a parcel of wretches — some of 
them foreigners — in the office of the Provost Marshal, called 
detectives, who, either upon an assumed or general delegated 
authority, used the names of the Secretaries of War and of 
State, and that their acts were not overruled. 

Instantly upon my discharge by the Commissioner, the Mar- 
shal told me I was to go to New York. He put me in a car- 
riage he had waiting at the door, drove round to my rooms for 
me to get my trunk, and then drove down to the Market or 
Arch street wharf, where we crossed and walked down to the 
Camden and Amboy depot, to take seats in the train, with the 
passengers who were coming over the ferry from Walnut street 
wharf on the company's boat. 

While in the carriage with me, in order to show, as he said, 
his consideration towards me, the Marshal took out of his pock- 
et a despatch, and showed it to me. It was as follows : 

" Washington, February 11, 1861. 
" Send Wm. H, Winder to Fort Lafayette. 

" W. H. SEWARD." 

He said he had had it in his possession several days (it was 
then the 13th) but had not used it. I saw instantly that it was the 
response to my letter of the 10th instant to him, and that the 
moment he had read it, with all the imperiousness of manner 
and all the amiability of purpose of Richard, he pronounced 
the doom, " Off with his head ! So much for Buckingham " — 
of which his despatch is a Republican despot's translation. At 



23 

this time Governor Seward had not learned of my arrest on the 
previous night. At the cars the Marshal confided me to the 
charge of two deputies, who accompanied me to New York, 
where they engaged a hack, and in it we were driven to Fort 
Hamilton, and with me, the deputies delivered to Colonel Burke 
the letter consigning me to his custody. 

Colonel Burke sent me under escort to Fort Lafayette, to 
which place from Fort Hamilton I was taken in a row-boat. 

The abominable treatment of prisoners in Fort Lafayette is 
too well known to require any notice in this statement. I early 
took occasion to write to an acquaintance, who was on terms of 
the closest intimacy with Governor Seward, requesting him to 
come and see me. He did come. . I told him my profound ig- 
norance of the cause of my arrest and imprisonment ; that I 
knew no just cause existed, and that a proper examination, in 
my presence, would clearly establish this ; that in regard to 
Governor Seward's despatch of the 11th September, though not 
used, it came so instantly upon the receipt of my letter by him, 
that it would seem to be justly attributed to it; and upon my 
stating how freely I had stated my views in it, this gentleman 
seemed to think there was no doubt of it. My object in wish- 
ing to see him was to request him to go to Washington and learn 
the cause of my arrest, and inform me. He promised to go and 
learn of Governor Seward, and to report to me, if permitted, 
the cause of my offence, if it should be other than the letter to 
which we both attributed Governor Seward's despatch. He 
promised me also to see Cameron. I told him then, in the most 
distinct terms, that I required an unconditional release — a re- 
lease which, of itself, should perfectly vindicate me. He left 
me ; and, never having corrected this assurance, I was con- 
tinued in my opinion of the cause of Seward's despatch. 

Fort Lafayette, September 17, 1861. 

Dear Sir : Believing that General Cameron and Governor Se- 
ward would be glad to find that no sufficient cause existed, even 
according to the policy marked out for their action, for my incarce- 



24 

ration in this Fort, I am so far induced to rely upon your considera- 
tion for me as to request of you a visit for the purpose of having a 
conversation with you. It will be necessary for you to get from 
Washington written permission to visit me. I will here simply 
.-tate that I propose to say nothing to you which you are not at lib- 
erty to publish to the world, if need be. 

In regard to the cause of my confinement, all that I have been 
able to learn is from the fare of the warrant of the Mayor, on which 
my arrest was made, which alleges treasonable correspondence 
with the Confederates, " to overthrow the Government and seize 
upon the property of the United States." 

In regard to correspondence with the Confederates, I can simply 
state that I have not, since 12th April, written a letter or sent a 
message to any one whatever in the South, nor have I received a 
'etter or a message from any one. I have had no com'munication 
Avith the South whatever, except' that I may have written one or 
two letters to the secretary of our mining company in North Caro- 
lina, (if so, copies of them are in my letter-book, which has been 
seized,) and two letters written, but not sent, because the Express 
Company had ceased, by order of Governmant, to take charge oi 
letters for the South, but the letters themselves have be^n seized, 
and will speak for themselves. I hey are in reply to a letter from 
the secretary of our mining company, who said the State would 
probably confiscate our properly in retaliation for the confiscation 
act of Congress. His letters are in possession of the Government. 
The above includes, 1 may say unqualifiedly, all the letters sentby 
or received by me, to or from any parties in the Confederate Stales, 
or of the Confederate States. But, in order to simplify the whole 
matter, I will state, that unless a difference of opinion in regard to 
the policy of the Administration as to the best mode of securing the 
Union of all the Stiites, be, to the Administration, just cause for in- 
carcerating me, no cause for my confinement exists. But if that 
tiifTerence of opinion be cause for what has been done to me, then 
there do^s exist the most abundant cause. Claiming, as I do, an 
absorbing desire for a Union of hearts, a Union of hands, a Union 
>f States, to a degree second to no man, I have not hesitated to pre- 
sent to others my views as to the surest and speediest mode of at- 
taining this end, and to none have I more forcibly or more frankly, 
1 might say so forcibly and so frankly, as I have done by direct 
communications to members of the Administration itself, in the hope 
'hat the Administration might thus be induced to give some heed t 
to what you may rely upon it, was and is, the earnest prayer of mil- 
lions of Americans, net less anxious than the Administration itself to 
secure that Unir n which is the avowed purpose of its policy. 

I will close by briefly stating, that, in the foregoing, will be found 
the length and breadth of any offence by me ; and that, if there be 



25 

any seeming evidence of anything at variance with this, I pro- 
nounce it not authentic, however imposingly it may be presented, 
and that all such will dissolve and disappear in my presence. 

With many apologies for a tresspass on your courtesy, which 
may subject you to much inconvenience, 

1 am, most truly, yours, 

W. H. WINDER. 
Hon. R. M. Blatchford, New York. 

Fort Warren, January n', 1802- 

Dear Sir: Some three months since, in the visit you were good 
enough to make me, in my confinement at Fort Lafayette, I made 
request that you would ascertain the cause of my arrest and con- 
finement. I stated to you the tenor of a letter I had addressed to 
< lovernor Seward, and that, on the next day — the day of its recep- 
tion by him — a despatch was sent to the Marshal of Philadelphia, 
in the following words: "Send W. H. Winder to Fort Lafayette. 
W. H. Seward." I understood you to promise that you would 
learn the cause; and if it should prove to be any other than the 
letter, to which you attributed the despatch, and you should be per- 
mitted to inform me, that you would do so. As I have not since 
had a line from you, I have concluded, as you did, that the letter oi 
the 10th April was the offence which caused the despatch, and as 
I had nothing different to sav I have made ho effort to obtain re- 
lease other than to ask an interview with Governor Seward upon 
it. The time is not far distant when a just interpretation of that 
letter will be made by Governor Seward, when right motives will 
be admitted as the cause of it, and true, and faithful, and friendly 
counsel place its contents, and its wiiter among the truest and most 
devoted Unionists. * * * in several letters intimated, on your au- 
thority, that the obstacle to my release was my objection to taking 
the oath, and thus it would seem I am made to be my own jailor. 
While I was glad to have seemingly such authentic information 
that such was the only obstacle to my release — (if wrongly advised 
in this please inform me) — I still think that a due consideration of 
the matter, with the light of passing events, will induce the 
conclusion that the best interests of the country, so far as I am con- 
cerned, will be most effectually subserved by my free discharge. — 
The signs of the times are portentous, and in a conflict with Eng- 
land my zeal and services would be as valuable as those of any 
other individual similarly circumstanced. 

I have differed from the policy of the Administration, agreeing 
with the early expressed views of Governor Seward, and the wise 
warnings, at an early day, of Thurlow Weed. Had Governor Se- 
ward adhered to his convictions, so distinctly and so prophetically 



26 

_>eclared, and when oveiborne in council had resigned, issuing a 
pronunciamento of his own policy and difference from that of his 
ce-ministers, and had returned to private life, how thoroughly would 
events have vindicated him, and how pre-eminently he would have 
loomed up, the man of the times! Would that he had done so, 
alike for his country as his own sake. The kindly personal feel- 
ing I then entertained towards him had inspired the wish that ho 
should do it. 

As I know you to be as solicitous for all that concerns Governor 
Seward as for yourself, I am still willing to believe that you retain 
. confidence in my candor and motives. I have written you thus 
freely. My opinions, as hitherto expressed, are deepened by the 
current of events, which are simply the fulfilment of all that I 
have said. 

Respectfully, yours, 

W. H. WINDER. 
Hon. R. M. Blatchford, New York. 

New York, January 9, 18G2. 

My Dear Sir: I did speak to Mr. Seward about your case, but 
I did not write to you because I had nothing very satisfactory to 
communicate. I learned enough in Washington, however, to be 
sure that, if there was a disposition to release you, it certainly 
would not be done unless you took the oath of allegiance ; and 
that, you remember, you were not willing to do. I did not -inquire 
about the reason that led to your arrest, nor learn whether they were 
such as would now allow your release on your being willing to take 
the oath. I should be glad indeed to see you free again. And if 
you have changed your mind about the oath, I will write to Gover- 
nor Seward in your behalf. That will bring him to the decision 
whether your further imprisonment is deemed necessary. 
I am very truly, yours, &c. 

R. M. BLATCHFORD. 

On the 29th October we embarked on board the steamer 
State of Maine for Fort Warren. On 1st November, 1861, we 
entered that Fort, where no preparation whatever had been 
made for our reception. The rooms had not even a chair, and 
for about eight days we had nothing but the bare floors to lie 
on, over which we spread our overcoats, having neither bed nor 
blanket. Some few perfectly raw hams, in the open air, cut 
upon a barrel head, were distributed, and some of the prisoners 
thus got something to eat. 



27 

The commander, Colonel Dimick, it is only just to say, man- 
ifested throughout a disposition to grant every indulgence con- 
sistent with his instructions, and his whole course was in marked 
and favorable contrast with the fellows at Lafayette. I say tliia 
of him, though no one received less consideration at his hands 
than I, and I owe him nothing but the recollection that he acted 
courteously to all, whatever especial regard he may have shown 
to some.* 

At Fort Lafayette it was a rule that we should require that 
no portions of our letters should be published, and the restric- 
tions as to their contents were very rigid. 

On the 5th December I addressed to Governor Seward the 
following letter, but to which no reply was ever received : 

" Fort Warrkn, December, 5, 1861. 
" To the Hon. W. H. Seward, Secretary of State : 

'' Sir : In accordance with your letter of instructions, read to the 
parlies confined in this Fort, to address you directly in relation to their 
release, I proceed to do so, relying upon the implied assurance of your 
letter that these communications will receive your personal attention and 
reply. 

" I have been confined now nearly thirteen weeks, anu| during all 
that time 1 have been unable to learn of any charge whatever ; conse- 
quently lean only state that 1 am unconscious of word or act incon- 
sistent with the character of a true American citizen, and hence 1 infer 
that my arrest did not emanate from the head of a Department, ami that 
the names of such, when employed in this matter, were merely pro 
forma, without attention to, and probably without knowledge of, the 
document to which they were attached, 

" In this state of affairs I most respectfully submit to your considera- 
tion the propriety of allowing me, on parole, to visit Washington for 
the examination of my case, and I will add my conviction that a short 

I have some hesitation in mentioning tho fact, that upon two occasions I wished to 
fend sealed letters, stating to Lieut. Edw. R. Parry, who had supervision of all cor- 
respondence, that the contents were exclusively of a private character, and made no 
reference whatever to politics or to military operations, and unless he could let them 
pass sealed, I should not send them. Without a moments hesitation, Lieut. Parry 
assented, upon the assurance above given. I sincerely hope this acknowledgement 
of his courtesy will not bring upon him the displeasure of the Department. 



23 

interview will satisfy you of some error in ray arrest and confinement, 
which have proved seriously detrimental. 

" Should ihe granting the parole prove to he inconsistent with your 
purposes; I trust I shall not be disappointed in inv expectation of re- 
ceiving a statement of any charges against me, fully, specifically, and 
with all the eridence in the possession of the Department, together with 
ihfl names of all parlies making charges. 

" Respectfully, your obedient servant, 

" W. EL WINDER." 

On the 14th January I was offered release on condition of ta- 
king the oath of allegiance, which I declined. I had sought of 
Governor Seward, through several persons, for a temporary 
leave on parole, to attend to some important business, but in 
vain. Senator Pearce, of Maryland, among others to whom 1 
had written to learn my imputed offence, and to get this tempo- 
rary boon, in reply on 21st January, 1862, says : " Your fre- 
quent correspondence and bold conversation have made you 
obnoxious. I fear there is no influence — certainly I have none 
— to avail for your purpose " — (temporary absence on parole.) 
Again, on 2d February, he says: " With Mr. Seward I can do 
nothing. I saw him again yesterday, and he is as rigid as cast- 
iron." I wrote back, before we should be done with Seward, 
we would melt this cast-iron beneath a white heat. This " fre- 
quent correspondence " became known only after my arrest and 
the seizure of my papers. 

On the lo'th February I was again offered release on condi- 
tion of taking the oath, which was denominated a modified oath. 
As I required an unconditional release, I refused. On 22d 
February the " amnesty " and " parole " were tendered as con- 
ditions of release. I refused for reasons stated in the follow- 
ing letter to the Secretary of War : 

[Copy.] 

Fort Warren, 22d February, 1862. 
I have been held in confinement in Forts Lafayette, N. Y., and War- 
ren, Mass., without process or form of law, now more than five months, 
!jav'mg been arrested in Philadelphia, my residence, from whence, by 



20 

order of Simon Cameron, Secretary of War, by telegraphic despatch, f 
was transferred to those distant points. 

Immediately upon my arrest, in my absence, my office, desks, chests, 
&c, were all broken open, and all my papers, a collection of more than 
thirty years, ransacked, on pretence of hunting treasonable matter dui- 
ing the few months preceding ; the sanctity of p;ivate correspondence 
was violated and malignantly calumniated, by the publication of pre- 
tended contents thus seized ; other parties were grievously slandered by 
statement of falsely alleged contents, and I debarred of all opportunity 
to contradict such infamous publications. My letter-books, writings and 
letters are still in possession of public officials Even pictures, twenty 
years old, found in my possession, were misrepresented to slander me. 
My correspondence, addressed to me at Philadelphia since my arrest, 
has been intercepted. I am to this hour in ignorance of the cause of my 
arrest and detention. Gov. Seward, Secretary of State, caused an order 
of his to be read to the prisoners, in which he stated that the employ' 
ment of paid counsel would only have the effect of prejudicing the case 
of such parties, would be deemed an ofTence, and would occasion 
prolongation of imprisonment ; his order required all applications to be 
addressed directly to him or through unpaid parties. 

In accordance with this order, never having employed counsel, on the 
5th Dec'r last, 1 addressed a letter to the Secretary of State, in which 
referring to his order giving assurance that he would read and reply to 
our communicatio'ns, I proceeded to state my long confinement, my ig- 
norance of the causes therefor, and requesting permission to go to Wash- 
ington for an investigation of my case, or for a statement of the charges 
against me, if any, the full testimony, and the names of my accusers, or 
pise an unconditional discharge. To this hour no reply has been received. 
My release was tendered me on condition of taking the oath of allegi- 
ance, &c. I .leclined to accept release upon conditions. A second time 
release was offered upon condition of taking the oath, which offer was 
accompanied by a letter of explanation from Gov. Seward, intended to 
remove objections, in slating that support of the Constitution did not 
include, necessarily, support of the individual members of the Executive. 
My objection being radical, applied to all tests or conditions which 
might be supposed to admit that I had done anything inconsistent with 
the character of a true American, and I ; of course, declined this second 
offer of release. 

In common with my fellow members of the company to which I was 
attached, I took an oath to support the Constitution, and I am still under 
its full responsibility. I am ready, in common with all others, on every 
pioper and lawful occasion, to take it a thousand times. But as a dis- 
criminating test, imputing past and future intended wrong, it is not possi- 
ble for me thus voluntarily to calumniate myself. The interior of Fort 
Warren, with the mens sibi conscia recti, is preferable to a release pur- 
chased at expense of character. So far from being willing thus to calumni- 
ate myself. I have challenged and do now challenge a comparison of record 



30 

of fidelity to the Constitution and its Union with all concerned in my 
arrest and detention, confident that the result will furnish none of them 
with cause for self-gratulalion. 

In this state of the case, the Secretary of War announces that the 
President will grant " amnesty " for past offences, and take •« parole " 
against the commission of future ones, of all persons, •' except spies in 
the service of the insurgents, or others, whose release at the present mo- 
ment may be deemed incompatible with the public safety." 

Thus I should be turned loose, stained with an unnamed guilt of the 
past, supposed to be covered by the " amnesty,'' and the equally name- 
less guilt of the future averted by the " parole," allowing a censorious 
world to impute any wrongs it may please as being concealed beneath 
the cloaks of "amnesty *' and " parole,'' to which, by my acceptance, 
I would give, at least, a quasi admission, and certainly would leave upon 
myself the color of guilt, without power of vindication against such im- 
putation. 

The «• spies'' and others, whose liberation " may be deemed incom- 
patible with the public safety," will have, probably, the opportunity for 
a perfect vindication, while those favored with " amnesty" and " parole'' 
will stand forever beneath those clouds. 

It would seem to be an exquisite aggravation of the original wrong, 
which the order admits and purports to remedy and correct. The wrong 
done was illegal incarceration without charge; the redress now proposed 
is to confess that wrong has been done and to receive " amnesty '' there- 
for; to acknowledge intention to do future wrong, and then give '*'. pa- 
role " to forego such intention. 

The condition, in a Northern State, of a man accepting " amnesty " 
or giving *• parole," would be a confession of guilt, bearing in its train 
intolerable consequences. 

For these reasons, and many others which naturally present them 
selves, and would be stated if necessary, the undersigned hopes the Sec- 
retary of War will find it consistent with his duty to reinstate him at 
home to his original position before arrest. 

If there be any charge of crime, I am ready to meet it. If there be 
none, I trust the Secretary will see that to impose conditions on me as 
the price of my liberation is to aggravate the wrong which will then stand 
confessed. 

It might be simple justice alike to the Administration as to prisoners, 
to have the informers who misled the Department exposed to view and 
to just punishment. 

I am, respectfully, your obedient servant, 

W. H, WINDER, 
Jlon, E. B. STANTON, Sec.'of War, 
Washington. 



31 

On 15th March I opened a"correspondence with General Cam- 
eron, to ascertain the charges and the accuser, which had in- 
duced him to send me to Fort Lafayette. It follows, and will 
explain itself: 

Fort Warren, loth March, 1862. 
Hon. Simon Cameron, 

Sir — It was by your order, through Telegraphic Despatch, that I 
was taken from Philadelphia to Fort La Fayette and placed in confine-* 
ment there, from whence 1 was transferred to this Fort in which I am 
confined, still ignorant of the cause which induced you to issue that 
order. 

The object of mv writing this letter is to obtain from you informa- 
tion, at whose instance and upon what representations you were influ- 
enced to the issue of the order for my confinement in Port La Fayette. 
I believe I do not err in supposing the order could not have been of 
your own motion, but was u-pon the statement of party or parties who 
ought not and whom you supposed would not mislead you. I trust 
that my reliance on your readiness to afford me the information will not 
prove delusive. 1 feel myself entitled to this consideration at your 
hands, and am unwilling to doubt your inclination to accord it to me. 
I am, Resp'y, Your Ob't Servant, 

W. H. WINDER. 

Lochiel, 24 March, 1862. 
W. H. Winder, Esq, 

Sir, — You surprise me by saying in your letter of the 15th inst., 
received to-day, that it was by my order that you were taken from 
Philadelphia to Fort La Favette, and placed in confinement, &c. 

I knew nothing of your arrest until I saw the fact stated in the 
newspapers, and being at the time closely engaged in the discharge of 
my official duties, neglected to inquire into the cause ; presuming, 
however, that it was done by order of the State Department, which 
has charge of such cases as I presumed yours to be. 

Respectfully, SIMON CAMERON. 

Fort Warren, March 31, 1862. 

Hon. Simon Cameron, Lochiel, near Harrisburg. 

Sir,— I have to thank you for your prompt reply to my request for 
information as to the causes which induced you to issue an order for 
my transfer to Fort La Fayette. Your reply of the 24th, stating your 
surprise at learning I had been sent there by your order, and that you 



32 

knew nothing of my arrest until you saw it in the papers, and presum- 
ed it had been done by order of the Stale Department, confirms me in 
my supposition that your name had been used either without your 
knowledge, or inadvertently signed to a paper without heeding its 
contents. It was obtained somehow through the District Attorney. 
I give you a copy of the document upon which Col. Burke took 
charge of me and placed me in Fort La Fayette. 

" Lt. Col. Martin Burke, Com'g Fort Hamilton. 

Philada, Sep. 13, 1861. 
Dear Sir, — Permit me to introduce to you my Deputy Mr. Sharkey, 
who carries with him Mr. Winder to be delivered to your custody per 
order of Secretary of War. 

Your ob't serv't. 

WM. MILLWARD, U. .& Marshal." 

I am respectfully, 

Your ob't ser't. WM. H. WINDER. 

Fort Warren, 31 March, 1862. 
Hon. Simon Cameron, Lochiel, near Harrisburg, 

Sir, — Since writing you to-day I have received the following 
copy of despatch from Philadelphia. 

" 65 Washington, 11 Sep. 1861. 

Geo. A. Coffey, U. S. District Attorney. 

Have telegraphed Marshal Millward to arrest Win, H. Winder 
and transfer him to Fort La Fayette. 

S. Cameron, Sec'y War." 

I have supposed this may recall to your mind the communica- 
tion of Mr. Coffey, to which, apparently, it is a reply. 
I am respectfully, your ob't ser't, 

W. H. WINDER. 

Lochiel, 2 April, 1862* 
W. H. Winder, Esq. 

Sir. — I have enclosed your letter of 31st, received to-day, to the 
Secretary of State, and disavowed all knowledge of your arrest, 
with request for your release if you have been held by ray direc- 
tion. Veiy Respectfully, 

SIMON CAMERON. 



33 

Fort Warren, 5th April, 1862. 
v Hon. Simon Cameron, Lochiel, near Harrisburg. 

Sir, — I have been much gratified by the receipt of your letter 
of 2d April, in which you advise me of your having sent my (first ) 
letter of 31 March to the Secretary of State, with request for my 
release if I have been held by your direction. 

This is satisfactory, and is all the action the case requires at, 
your hands, unless, indeed, a disregard of your request, should 
render it proper for your own vindication against an act which you 
repudiate, but the responsibility for which is placed on your name, 
by the record-. 

Your obd't. serv't, 

W. H. WINDER. 

On the 6th May I was summoned into the presence of tho 
Commissioners, Dix and Pierpont. General Dix sought, by ar 
gument, to remove my objections to giving my parole, contend- 
ing that doing so could not properly be construed into taint 
upon my conduct. I gave my reasons on the other side, that if 
no taint was intended, and it was as he said, and it was their 
object to hold me guiltless, an unconditional discharge would leave 
no doubt of an entire acquittal, while to hold me there, admit- 
edly guiltless of wrong, except on condition of parole, was with- 
out excuse. General Dix specified, as the exceptionable items, 
my correspondence with Senators Davis, Toombs, and Breck- 
enridge, Burnett, Vallandigham, and Hallock, of the Journal of 
Commerce. I took issue with him upon them, in the manner 
stated in my letter of 9th May to these gentlemen. 

The secretary, Webster, said I had received treasonable let- 
ters from C. H. Winder, Washington ; but on my objecting to 
the word treasonable, General Dix directed him to strike out 
the word from his notes. 

General Dix said I knew that the war, to which I was op- 
posed, was forced upon the Federal Government by an impend- 
ing attack on the Federal Capitol, in reply to this, I bogged 
the attention of the Commissioners "to the" facts I should state, 
and challenged them to controvert the correctness of any one of 
nhcm. I denied in toto the fact or purpose of an irnpendiru 
4 



34 

capture of Washington. I stated that the Confederacy had nor 
a soldier within five hundred miles of the city of Washington ; 
that not a single soldier had been set in motion to proceed there ; 
that the States of North Carolina and Virginia interposed their 
whole breadth between the city of Washington and the Confed- 
eracy ; that the first had refused to call a convention even to 
consider the question of secession, and that two-thirds of the 
convention of the latter were opposed to secession ; that, in 
fact, there did not exist a scintilla of evidence that the Confed- 
eracy entertained the purpose, much less had forces in imminent 
proximity hastening to the capture, except the solitary drunken 
declaration of Mr. Walker. I stated that, notwithstanding the 
zeal with which evidence of this purpose had been sought, none 
had been, none could be obtained of what had no existence. 

To all this General Dix had nothing to urge but that he be- 
lieved that in Virginia, Mason and others were raising troops 
for that purpose. He acquitted Hunter, as being a mere " doc- 
trinaire," as he called him, from any active participation. 

And thus in justification of this frightful war, all that could 
be advanced was an opinion that in Virginia, (not in the Con- 
federacy) against which alon?, was charged a purpose to take 
the city, and against which this army was to act, somebody was 
raising troops with this intention ; and yet to this hour they 
have been unable to find this somebody, or a single fact to sup- 
port the charge. 

I stated, in regard to the relative position of the State and 
Federal Governments, that the resolutions of 1798-'99 embod- 
ied my opinions. The Secretary (Webster) greedily snatched 
at this statement, as though he had pinned me with conclusive 
evidence of treason, and I noticed a day or two afterwards, in 
a Republican paper in Boston, a bitter article, denouncing these 
resolutions as the cockatrice egg from which the monster se- 
cession was hatched. 

On 9th May I addressed to Messrs Dix and Pierpont the fol- 
lowing letter, which will explain itself, and refutes the card of 



35 

those gentlemen, published in the New York papers of No- 
vember : 

" Fort Warren, May 9, 1862. 

<l To Major<-General John A. Dix and Judge Pierpont, 

" Commissioners appointed by the War Department for the ex- 
amination of political prisoners: 

" Gentlemen' : When General Dix told me the Commission would 
consider the reasons urged by me for an iinconditional release, I sup- 
posed I should learn the result before your departure from this Fort. — 
Not having heard from you, and reading in the papers the announce- 
ment of your leaving Boston for New York, I have supposed that it 
may be your purpose to refer the matter for decision to the Depart- 
ment. In such case I deem it proper, in justice to myself, that a more 
lull record of what I said than the meagre notes of your Secretary fur- 
nish, should accompany the statement of my case. I have, therefore, 
to request that this further statement of what transpired may be placed 
with the other papers. 

"In appearing before you, at your summons, I was told that my of- 
fence was " my correspondence with various parties, and my writings for 
the newspapers," and you wished to know what I had to say. 

'* I stated that this offence became known only after my arrest and 
the seizure of my papers. And in regard to that correspondence and 
those writings, I had to say that loyalty and devotion to the Constitu- 
tion breathed from them throughout as inseparably as fragrance from 
the rose. That if any charge of crime could be founded on them, I was 
ready to meet such charge. If no charge of crime could be construed 
from them, and yet the writings and correspondence should be deemed 
amenable to censure, I challenged their publication entire as the ground 
of my confinement, and should desire no more perfect vindication than 
their publication would afford me. 

" The Secretary interposed, saying that although the writings did 
profess devotion to the Constitution, yet they opposed the war. I sta- 
led that my conviction of the propriety of the course advocated by me 
in all these writings had been deepened by subsequent events, and that 
I adhered to them still. That nevertheless, in my difference from the 
Administration I had violated no law, nor in any way had done any- 
thing inconsistent with the character of a true American. It was true 1 
had assailed unsparingly the Abolition element m the Republican party ; 
that I did so now, and ever would anathematize it. 

" I further stated, very distinctly, that I had written to the Secreta- 
ries of War and of State, (and referred the Commission to the letters 
which were in their possession,) in which 1 had, in the strongest and 
most explicit manner, given my views, entirely in consonance with all 
my writings and correspondence. These letters were sent piior to my 



arrest. And I stated that Government, and I presumed the Corrimis'- 
sion also, were in possession of the reply of one of these Secretaries* 
who stated that, notwithstanding my uncompromising difference from 
the Administration, he had none the less confidence in my loyalty and 
patriotism. I also produced and left with the Commissioners a copy of 
correspondence With the late Secretary of War, (General Cameron,) in 
which he disavowed all knowledge of my arrest and confinement, made 
in his name, and in which he stated he had so Written the State Depart- 
ment, and requesting my release. My reply to Secretary Stanton's of- 
fer of " amnesty '' and liberation on " parole," the Commission had, as 
General Dix said. 

" I referred to my reasons given in this reply for refusing a condi- 
tional release. I stated that I had challenged a comparison of record of 
fidelity to the Constitution and the Union with all concerned in my ar- 
rest and imprisonment; and that again in their presence 1 repeated the 
challenge, confident of a favorable result. 

"I denied in toto that there was anything in the writings to which 
objecliou was made, which is inconsistent with the truest patriotism and 
truest loyalty to the Constitution and its Union. 1 staied my belief 
that, now, every one, except the Abolitionists, must admit that it would 
have been wiser to have yielded the modicum which would have satis- 
fied the South and have retained the Union, than was the course pur- 
sued in creating a debt of thousands of millions of dollars, with all the 
horrors of the gigantic war, which, even if successful, could not estab- 
lish the Union so favorably as it would have continued if such counsels 
and measures as I sustained had been adopted. 

*' 1 could find no language too strong to express my abhorrence of the 

Abolition influences allowed to prevail under the present Administration. 

■ '' With this statement, which please file with the other papers, I 

;i wait result, while I mean, in no manner whatever, to admit the legality 

•o'f the tribuna 1 -. 

"I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

«W. H. WINDER." 

I subjoin the following letter of Messrs. Dix and Pierpont, 
"taken from the New York Herald of 19th November, 1862 ; 
with this and the foregoing letter, the reader may judge be- 
tween us. I challenged them to a public issue, by a publica- 
tion of the Seifced papers. They declined the issue. With the 
disavowal! of "the late Secretary of Wat " of all knowledge of 
'my arrest, and his request for my release in their possession, 
they allege I was arrested " by order of the late Secretary of 
War." It is for those gentlemen to explain this contradiction 



37 

To what " official of high eminence," or, " in answer to your 
(what ?) inquiry," I am left in the dark; but the presumption 
would seem to be that " the official of high standing " was de- 
sirous of placing on ''the late Secretary of War " the respon- 
sibility of an arrest and imprisonment which he disavowed, and 
had requested of " an official of high eminence " my release. 

It is due to those gentlemen to say that their examination 
was made courteously : and I certainly understood General 
Dix, the spokesman, distinctly, to say, while urging me to give 
" parole," that it would afford no countenance whatever to a 
supposition derogatory to my integrity as a true American. I 
therefore interpret the intimation of disloyalty in their card to 
be that of the imprisoning official, and not theirs. If theirs, 
then let them establish it : 



" THE CASE OF W. H. WINDER. 

" The following letter to an official of high eminence will explain the 

matter : 

" November 12, 1862. 

" Dear Sir : In answer to your inquiry as to the facts "of the case oi 
Wm. H. Winder, a prisoner of State in Fort Warren, we reply that, on 
investigation, it appeared that Winder was arrested by order of the late 
Secretary of War ; that a large number of letters and papers were 
seized, tending to show disloyalty to the Government, and a purpose to 
aid the rebellion. But after careful investigation of all the papers, and 
after a personal examination of Mr. Winder, we determined to release 
him on his giving his parole not to take up arms against the United 
States, or to give aid to the enemy, which he refused ; and, as we are 
advised, there has been no day since when he might not have freely lefi 
ihe Fort upon that simple parole. 

" Very respectfully yours, 

"JOHN A. DIX, Major-General. 
"EDWARDS PIERPONT." 

Again, in August, 1862, I addressed the following letter to, 
Mr. Stanton, of which no notice was ever taken ; 



38 

[Copy.] 

" To the Hon. E. M. Stanton*, Sec. of War, Washington : 

" Fort Warren, 20th August, 1862. 

" Sir : More than eleven months have elapsed since my arrest am' 
the seizure of all my papers. During the last six months of this con- 
finement my clerk has been sick and absent from the city, so that I have 
not had a word from him, and my affairs, already most damagingly em- 
barrassed, are threatened with a more complete ruin. 

"At the present moment my personal attention is vitally important to 
the carrying into effect some proposed arrangements in relation to ttiy 
affairs, and fur this purpose I desire a leave of absence from this Fort 
for thirty days. 

" In order to obviate any hesitation which might arise, I will state my 
readiness to give parole not to engage in political or military discussions, 
also to report myself to the commanding officer of this Fort within thir- 
ty days from the date of my leaving it. 

*' As numerous parties, confined with me, have had this leave after 
only a few months' imprisonment, I trust it is no misplaced reliance by 
me to anticipate a like consideration. 

" I am, sir, your obedient servant, 

"W. H. WINDER, of Philadelphia," 

On 5th October Messrs. George W. Biddle, W. B. Reed, and 
P. McCall arrived in Boston to sue out a writ of habeas cor- 
pus. Mr. Biddle telegraphed to the Secretary of War for per- 
mission to see me, and received a peremptory refusal. Thus I 
was refused access to counsel, while other prisoners had been 
allowed visitors, and at that very time seven friends of prisoners 
were daily visitors at Fort Warren. 

On the 29th October my counsel applied for a writ of habeas 
corpus, the issue of which was delayed to enable the District 
Attorney to receive instructions from Washington. If the Ad- 
ministration relied upon Mr. Binney's argument and authority 
to suspend the habeas corpus, the District Attorney would have 
received instructions to oppose the issue, or plead this right. If 
not sure on that point, and it had any evidence of guilt, legal 
or moral, on my part, which would secure public condemnation, 
and palliate the outrage on the Constitution and law, by a too 
eager but manifestly patriotic impulse, it would have adduced! 



39 

it. Bat discarding Mr. Binney's argument as unsound, ami 
destitute of the other, it aggravated its wickedness by imposing 
upon the commander at Fort Warren the dirty part of sneak- 
ing from the just action of the law, and resisting, with the mili- 
tary, the rightful action of the Court. The commander of the 
Fort thus became, in fact, legally the prisoner of one whom lie 
illegally held in prison, for he dared not leave the walls of Fore 
Warren. Thus the Administration wantonly, presented the 
spectacle of using military force in Massachusetts to prevent, 
to defeat the regular operations of the civil law. 

The following letter to my counsel was not allowed to pass, 
but was returned as contraband, and following it is the letter to 
Colonel Diinick : 

" Fort Warren, October 31st, 1S62. 
« Hon. GEO. S. HILLARD, Boston. 

" Dear Sir : In a note this day received from Mr. Riddle, referring 
me to the papers for the proceedings on the application for a writ of Ha- 
beas Corpus in my behalf, I am made acquainted with your indefatigable 
professional eiforts in the case, for which I take this early occasion to 
make my earnest acknowledgements, reserving a more suitable manifes- 
tation until after my release. 

" Will it not seem a strange thing to sensible men in their calm moods, 
that there can be any good reason why I was not arrested and prosecu- 
ted according to law, if 1 had offended the law ; or that there can be an 
offence, not in violation of the law, yet of a character so heinous as to 
justify the violation of the most cardinal provisions and principles of the 
Constitution and the laws ; and even supposing this possible, that it 
should be necessary to keep the offence a secret for fourteen months ; — 
and further, to preplex simple minds, that during that time the offending 
party should have been offered his release no less that four times — twice 
on condition of taking the oath of allegiance, and twice on parole ; and 
to cap the climax, that the party charged with such offence should, per- 
sistently, refuse a release except on terms that should acquit him and 
self-condemn his accusers as being the genuine malefactors. 

'« It would seem to me that with all, except lunatics from " Negro on 
the Brain," and those who have the dollar so close to their eyes as to 
be able to see nothing else, this and similar cases present much for re- 
flection on the dangers which hang imminent over all. 

44 Mr. Biddle added in his note, " we hope the time may soon come 
when your enlargement will lake place." I am at some loss to guess 
whether he refers to the battering ram which the elections are about to 
'yjply, or to that earlier discretion so much applauded by honest Sir John. 



4a 

To suppose that it will come from any motive likely to influence sensible 
men and statesmen, is to fly in the face of all past experience. 

" The Republican papers, passim, contend that there is a lex non 
xcripta which, whenever the Administration feels its withers wrung, 
authorizes the punishment of the authors tnereof '* by consignment to 
military custody." 

" I am, most respectfully and most truly yours, &c. 

W. II. WINDER. 



Upon return of this letter, I addressed to Col. Dimmick the 
following : A 

" Fort Warren, 1st November, 18G-2. 

"Sir: Yesterday you refused to let pass a note to my Counsel in 
Boston, unless all of its contents should be expunged, except the para- 
graph making my acknowledgements of his professional services. 

" I, therefore, deem it due to myself to call your attention to the fol- 
lowing facts — 

"1. — That my confinement in Fort La Fayette was under an alleged 
order of the Secretary of War, Simon Cameron, and that there is on the 
record no other authority for my confinement there and here. 

" 2.— That you are perfectly aware that Gen. Cameron denied all 
knowledge of my arrest, repudiating the act, because the whole of my 
correspondence with him on this subject, passed through your hands open 
and under your perusal. 

"3. — You know perfectly well that an imprisonment here under order 
of a Department, without charge* warrant and other form of law, would 
be a clear violation of the rights of a citizen under the Constitution and 
the laws, subjecting the violators to a penalty. 

"4. — You know that the record does not show even the color of that 
authority. 

" 5. — You know how stringently the law prohibits the opening of let- 
ters of other parties, even if lawfully in custody. 

" 6. — You know full well the unquestionable right of all citizens to 
have counsel, and to confer with them alone and by sealed letters, even 
though legally in custody, under charge of the most serious crime. 

" 7. — You know that I have sedulously sought to learn if there was 
any charge of crime against me, declaring my readiness to meet any such. 

"8.- — You know that no charge of crime has been made against me. 

«« 9. — You know that for the express purpose of forcing a lawful issue 
on the question of my incarceration here, a Writ of Habeas Corpus was 
issued addressed to you. 

44 10. — You know that you diligently and designedly thwarted the 



41 

process of the Court, preventing by threatened force its service' upon 
you, evading your just responsibility to the law. 

" 10. — You know full well that in accordance with the Constitution 
and the laws, it was your bounden duty, as a good citizen and officer, to 
allow the service of the writ, and to obey its summons. 

" If to your knowledge, or in your opinion, I have erred in any of the 
above, I beg your prompt correction, as it would cause me great regret 
to have misrepresented you in any manner* but on the contrary, I will 
rejofee at any explanation which may relieve you of what now seems to 
be your responsibility. 

'* If I have not erred, then the deductions from the foregoing would 
seem to be clear — that knowing that I have been feloniously incarcerated, 
and that there i3 no warrant or lawful authority for my detention, you 
nevertheless continue to hold me in custody, an abettor. 

" That with fall knowledge of the law in regard to opening letters, 
you aggravate its daily breach, by refusing to allow us to receive or to 
send freely our letters. , 

" That knowing, as you do, the undoubted ri^ht of every citizen to ap- 
peal to the law for relief against illegal restraint, you have, by force and 
design, resisted and defeated the solemn efforts of the law, because you 
knew you held roe in unlawful confinement ; and excluded from personal 
interview, as my counsel have been, you suppress a letter which is ad- 
dressed to my counsel and exclusively confined to such views of my 
case as I wish presented to him. 

" I now protest against any interposition between me and my counsel 
by you, and, indeed, against your keeping me here ^ and I demand of 
you the evidence of any authority whatever, real or pretended, except 
the physical force of your soldiers, for holdjng me a prisoner — for open- 
and reading all my letters to and fro, and for suppressing all that are dis- 
tasteful. 

" If you have the means to justify yourself, I shall certainly receive 
such an answer ; if you can find none to justify you, 1 would suggest 
that you would adopt such a course as will find its justification in the 
Constitution and the laws which you have sworn to support on penalty 
of perdition if you prove false to them. 

" Respectfully yours, 

" W. H. WINDER. 
4< Col. Justix Dimick.'' 

Fort Warren, November 17, 18fi2 

Dear Sir : I find my mind so importunately beset by most dis- 
tressing reflections upon the course which you, and too many oth- 
ers, have taken in relation to the emancipation proclamation, andi 
the orders already issued for instant action, intended to secure its. 



42 x 

instant accomplishment in the most horrid form, that I cannot re v 
sist giving them expression. 

While professing indignation at its purpose, and declaring the 
proclamation to be clearly unconstitutional in fact, you and others 
nevertheless prove false to the Constitution and to humanity, and 
aid the unconstitutional measure most effectually, by lulling watch- 
fulness and smothering action with the »yren songs of "brutumfjl- 
men" and " a Pope's Bull against the Comet." 

If you really be in earnest in your belief in its unconstitutionality 
and injustice, it would seem you should show it in some efficient 
manner. For if it be unconstitutional and improper, it is your du- 
ty, as it is of all loyal to the Constitution, of all professing loyalty 
to Christianity, to denounce and to oppose, by all legal and honor- 
able meps, all steps manifestly tending and intended to accom- 
plish this unconstitutional measure. 

Most especially should you denounce all those orders, which, on 
penalty of dismissal in such disgrace as is in the power of the 
official, require army officers to aid negroes in obtaining freedom, 
forbidding them to interfere, in any attempt which the negroes may 
make to free themselves. 

A Lieutenant Johnson, of Kentucky, deeply impressed with the 
unconstitutionality of the proclamation policy, tendered his resigna- 
tion rather than violate his oath to support the Constitution. For 
this he was instantly put in irons and sent to jail. Being resolute, 
he again tendered his resignation, for which he was, in the lan- 
guage used, dismissed the service disgracefully, in presence of the 
army, his shoulder-straps and insignia of office rudely torn from his 
person ! ! ! This is the ireatnient for fidelity to one's oath to sup- 
port the Constitution and id defend it. What a spectacle ! 

The sworn conservators of the Constitution issuing proclamations 
subversive of the Constitution and revolting to Christianity, mana- 
cling in irons, and disgracing, so far as they can disgrace anybody, 
an officer for tendering his resignation rather than become a par- 
ticeps in an outrage upon the Constitution. The case of Lieuten- 
ant Johnson, as reported, is even more flagrant and calls for deeper 
damnation than that of Mrs. Brinsmade. 

Why are you, and the other " bru turn fill men " syrens, silent 
upon this case of Lieutenant .lohnson, and upon the orders issued 
in consequence ? The New York 'limes of the 14th. in a special 
despatch, says information having been received by the War De- 
partment that certain military commanders have been returning fu- 
gitive slaves from within our lines, to loyal as well as rebel mas- 
ters, and the Secretary has ordered a report of the cases to be made 
to the Department, in order that the officers may be duly punished. 

Why don't you publish again General Butler's reply to Gover- 
nor Andrew's lecture to him upon similar proceedings ? You en- 



43 

dorsed that letter at the time as a fitting rebuke, and so did the na- 
tion generally. Give us the letter. 

Why don't you boldly and openly sustain all who maintain and 
.sustain the Constitution! Why not proclaim to the army and na- 
vy that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land ? 

When, by your course, and ihat of other '' brutum fulmeri" 
syrens, the horrors of a servile war shall aggravate the desolation 
of the South, mortally embittering hatred without securing subju- 
gation or Union — Union with murderers alike of the Constitution 
as of women and children-*— what a Union is offered thus to the 
South — a fraternity of the " Massachusetts School," will you be 
able, in that dread day to find syren songs which will lull your 
awakened conscience ? 

Why not act consistently with your declarations of the unconsti- 
tutionality of the proclamation and of a desire to restore u fraternal 
Union ? Will it weaken the North at home, or disgrace it abroad, 
for you and others to take all necessary steps to avert the disgiace 
abroad and the horrors at home of its enactment? 

With the thunder of the popular voice, let the lightning of its 
will strike all who lay sacrilegious hands upon that ark of our se- 
curity, the Constitution. 

I look upon the imprisonment of all State prisoners, indeed upon 
their summary execution, though all be pure as was Washington, 
as a light crime in comparison with the proclamation policy. 

How the papers teemed, at one time, with denunciations of an 
emancipation policy, universally scouting the idea as a monstrous 
slander, and they and the army vied with each other in giving as- 
surance that, whenever an emancipation policy should be an- 
nounced, that the whole army would refuse to act, and would lay 
lown their arms. Can't you publish some of the many thousand 
assurances so vehemently given ? 

The sins of this war are already a sufficient stench in the nos- 
trils of nations. Shall this country, by the adoption of the procla- 
mation policy, attach to itself an inextinguishable odor of infamy ? 

Very respectfully, yours, 

W. H. WINDER. 
Hon. James Brooks, New York. 



Respectfully returned as being contrary to instructions of Col. 
Dimick. 

By order of Col. Dimick. 

EDWARD R. PARRY, 

1st Lieut. 11th Infantry, 

Post Adjutant, 



44 

Col J. Oimick, Commanding Fort Warren.. 

Sir : — I have had Tetu.rned to me by Mr. Parry, the accompany- 
ing letter to the Hon. James Brooks, a member elect of Congress, 
which he refuses to send. I have supposed it may have been re- 
turned in ignorance of that fact. 

A refusal to allow Mr. Brooks to receive it, is no 'ess an insult 
to him, than it is an unmitigated tyranny and defiance of law. It 
is to charge Mr. Brooks with incapacity or indisposition to act 
rightly upon its suggestions. 

In view, therefore, of the fact, that Mr. Brooks has been elected 
a member of Congress, is a public man, upon his responsibility as 
such, I again deposit the letter to be sealed and forwarded to its 
destination, believing it has been returned in ignorance of that fact. 
The violations of our rights sufficiently abound, without excluding 
us from communications with members of Congress. 

Respectfully, yours, 

W. H. WINDER. 

November 17th, 1862. 

The enclosed letter to Honorable James Brooks, written by Mr. 
Winder, was respectfully returned, to him as contrary to my in- 
structions to allow to pass. He re-endorsed it to me wkh this 
letter. I refer the matter to the Department, that the letter may 
reach its destination, if there be no objection to it. 

Fort Warren, Nov. 18, 1802. 

The above is a copy of Col. Dimick's remarks on Mr. Winder's 
letter to him, on referring it with Hon. James Brooks' letter to 
Adjutant-General's Department. 

Kespectfully forwarded to Mr. Winder, by order of Col. Dimick. 

EDWARD R. PARRY, 
1st Lieut. 1 1th Infantry, Post Adjutant. 
Nov. 18, 1862. 

Fort Warren, November 18, 1862. 

Hon. James Brooks, New York. 

Dear Sir :-*-I yesterday deposited in the mail box a letter to 
your address. It was returned by Lieut. Parry refusing to send it. 
Supposing that he and Col. Dimick might not be aware of your 
having been elected a member of Congress, F again deposited it 
with a note conveying that information, and that as a public man 
on your responsibility you were entitled to receive it and treat it as 
you should think it deserved at your hands. To-day I am informed 



45 

Uhat Col. Dimick, without authority from me has assumed the res- 
ponsibility of sending my note and letter to you to the office of the 
Adjutant-General, to be sent to you or not, as the Department may 
see fit. This is the second letter to you they have refused to send. 
I deemed it proper to give these facts for your government. 
Will you be good enough to acknowledge receipt of this, that I may 
know you have got it. It seems our very utterance is to be suffo- 
cated. 

Respectfully, yours, 

W. H. WINDER. 

The Department did not send the letter to Mr. Brooks. 



To cap the climax, only a few short days after the soil of 
Massachusetts had been made the theatre for this shameful out- 
rage upon the laws of the land, every prisoner was released un- 
conditionally, without even the stain of a charge ! We owed 
this release mainly, no doubt, to the " battering-ram " of the 
ballot-box. We gladly left Fort Warren, and would that we 
could leave behind the recollections of the injustice endured 
within its walls, and forget that, among other repulsive exhibi- 
tions, we saw the entire garrison marching around, with the offi- 
cers at its head, singing "Old John Brown!" Col. Dimick, 
it is due to him to state, was in Boston at the time. 

The Administration will find that, from the seeds of despot- 
ism it has so liberally sown, it will, in the not distant future, 
reap a heavy harvest of unavailing repentance. 

The State and War prisoners were' mixed up promiscuously. 
The writer had eight war prisoners in the room with him, who 
were the more favored, for they had the liberty of the whole 
island, while the State prisoners were restricted to the square 
within the walls of the Fort, until after the visit of Messrs. Dix 
and Pierpont. 

The whole intercourse of the writer with the war prisoners 
confirmed his deepest conviction that the sin and responsibility 
of the alienation of the sections and the consequent war, rests 
upon the " Massachusetts school," and that is so set down by the 



46 

Recording Angel. It is but justice, perhaps, to this " Massa- 
chusetts school," to admit that some allowance should be made 
for its negro-mania, when we recollect that both sprang from the 
womb of the "May Flower," which spawned upon our shores, 
alternately, a batch of puritans and a batch of negroes. This 
consideration, by the puritan, for his ebony foster-brother is nat- 
ural, if not commendable ; for it is not strange that, having a 
common parentage, the puritan should claim for both a common 
destiny ; and to secure this identity is the labor of love of the 
"Massachusetts school," which repudiates, in the common ter- 
ritory, association with the ivhite of the South, but invites, by 
law, intermarriage of the puritan with the negro of the South, 
in accordance with that truthful maxim enunciated by John 
Quincy Adams, that " the natural gravitation of affinity will 
bring about the only Union that can be enduring :" and where 
is there more perfect knowledge of Puritan affinity than with 
the "Massachusetts school," which, in removing the obstacles 
to a loving union between Dinah and Barebones, well entitled 
itself to the honor of the negro toast to Greeley — "he got white 
skin, but he got black heart." All due honor to the "Massa- 
chusetts school." 

If Massachusetts, which now claims to be foremost with the 
sword to defend the Constitution and to re-establish Union, were 
to strike first, the criminal most responsible for the violation of 
the one and the disruption of the other, can any one doubt that 
such a blow would be the suicide of Massachusetts ? 

Might not the inquiry be safely extended, and ask, if the pro- 
moters and abettors of the war for Abolition were to follow this 
example, which Massachusetts ought to give, would it not clear 
the land of disunionists, and thus restore both the Union and 
the Constitution ? Our life upon it, only let them try it. If 
they be actuated by the devotion of Curtius, now is their chance ; 
let them plunge into the dividing gulf, which, closing over them, 
may once more unite the North and South. 

The assumptions and doctrines of the Republican party are 
simply these : That any party, avowing principles and purposes 



47 

violative or subversive of the Constitution, by the establishment 
of a monarchy, despotism, Abolitionism, or any similar outrage, 
nominating a candidate for the Presidency, and its nominee be- 
ing elected, even by a plurality of barely one-third of the pop- 
ular vote, that nevertheless such election is a sufficient sanction 
and confirmation of its avowed policy and purpose, as to 
authorize it to carry them into execution ; and that any 
State or parties resisting or withdrawing shall be forcibly 
coerced into submission ; for which purpose, the Executive 
may command the purse and the sword with unlimited power, 
and set aside the Constitution and the laws of the Federal 
and State Governments, and all that interferes with any action 
which he may see fit to adopt. In view of the conduct 
and avowals of the party, through its recognized leaders, this 
statement is not too strong nor too broad. And yet we are told 
there is no remedy but to permit the Executive and Congress to 
have full and undisturbed sway until the end of their terms, as 
if the end of the Executive term ever would come under this 
license. Freemen ! the price of liberty is eternal vigilance, 

AND RESOLUTE ACTION ! 



Immediately on my release, I proceeded to Washington, to 
get back my papers from Mr. Seward. The following will give 
the history of the matter : 

(Copy.) 
Hon. Wm. H. Seward, Secretary of State : 

Sir: — At the request of Wm. H. Winder, Esq., one of my con- 
stituents, I would ask the return to him of his books, letter-books, 
letters, papers, and a picture of John C. Calhoun, taken from Mr. 
Winder's office and domicil, in Philadelphia, at the time of his 
arrest in that city, in September, J861. The3e effects are now in 
the custody of Mr. Webster, of your department, as Mr. Winder 
is informed. An early reply will oblige him, and, 

Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

CHAS. J. BIDDLE. 
H. of R., Dec. 9, '62. 



48 

Department of State, Washington Dec. 10, 1862. 
The Honorable Charles J. Biddle, 

House of Represensatives. 
Sir: 

Your letter of the 9th instant has been received, and referred to 
the War Department. 

Very respecifully, your obedient servant, 

F. W. SEWARD, 

Assistant Secretary. 

(Copy.) 
(Delivered on 22d, Reply received on the 23d.) 

SIR: 

I learned from the Mayor of Philadelphia, that my books, letters, 
papers, etc., had been sent to you, by your order, (copy of which 
he showed to me,) by Detective Franklin, who took receipt for 
them. I learned this from several parties who had interviews with 
you, and that they were under special charge of Mr. Webster, of 
your Department, who acted as Secretary to Messrs. Dix and Pier- 
pont. 

Under this state of affairs, I feel that I have a right to claim of 
you their return, for, wherever they may be, they are attainable by 
you. 

I do, therefore, now demand of you the immediate return of all 
my books, papers and letters, and whatever else of mine which may 
have been sent to you. 

1 look to you, personally, for their return, and trust that, recog- 
nizing the propriety of my demand, you will take the necessary 
steps to put me promptly in possession of them. 

I am, Sir. your obedient servant, 

W. H. WINDER. 
Hon. Wm. H. Seward. 

Washington, 22d Dec. 1862. 

(Received Dec. 23 — Answered Dec. 23.) 

Mr. Seward presents his compliments to Mr. Winder, and has to 
inform him that his note of this date has been referred to the proper 
officer, Major L. C. Turner, Associate Judge Advocate of the 
Army. 

Department of State, 22d Dec, 1862. 



49 

(Original left by C. H. W., at State Department.) 

Washington, 23 December, 18(52. 

Sir: — f acknowledge the civility of your early reply to my note 
of yesterday, requesting of you the return of rny books, letters, 
papers, etc., which by your order were forwarded from Philadel- 
phia. 

You state in your note, that my note to you of same date (22d 
inst.) has been referred to Major L. C Turner, Jud^e Advocate of 
'be Army. If this reference has been accompanied by such in- 
structions from you as will cause the early return of what I have 
claimed, it will be satisfactory. If it be int-nded a< notice to mo 
to transfer my application to that officer, I beg leave, respectfully, 
to submit the following to your candid consideration. 

I was arrested at night, taken to my lodgings, my trunks, draw- 
ers, closets, &c, ransacked, and every paper found taken by the 
officers, who, also, took from my person, papers and keys ; then I 
was takm to a station house, and (hrust into a vile hole, in which 
I was kept all night, the officers meanwhile visiting my office, forc- 
ing doors and all my desks, chests, etc., and overhauling my papers. 
My clerk, next morning, ignorant of my arrest, went to my office, 
but was cautioned by the officers against coming again while in 
their pos-ession, which they thus held for about two weeks, during 
Avhich time, under pretence of searching for correspondence during 
the few months preceding, they ransacked my chests and drawers, 
overhauling and examining my papers, a collection of more than 
thirty years, giving access to the sacred privacy of private corres- 
pondence to the reporters of papers, who, in addition to the outrage 
of reading such, superadded the villiany of publishing pretended 
contents of such letters, thus grievously calumniating others as 
well as myself. 

You cannot, sir, fail to appreciate how one's sensibilities must 
have been wounded by such outrages, which I was not allowed 
even to contradict. All these outrages, perpetrated by coarse, un- 
ieeling brutes, who in seeking to wound me, strike all who in a 
Jong period of years may have written confidential letters. 

I deem what I have thus said sufficient to indicate to you the 
state of my feelings ; sufficient, also, to spur the instincts of an 
honorable mind, to the promptest and most ample reparation. 

I have been her' 1 nearly three weeks, seeking to get possession 
of my papers. I called first upon my own representative, the 
Hon. Ohas. J. Biddle,to go with me to see you, believing that to be 
the besi and only sure mode of recovery. He was afraid to trust 
me in your presence, and I yielded a reluctant assent to his prop >- 
eal to write a note to you for the papers, The reply to Ms note ■>. as 
5 



50 

•simply to say that his note had been referred to the War Depart- 
ment. On this I concluded to go alone in person to the Depart- 
ment. On asking if 1 could see the Assistant Secretary of State, 
1 was told that I could go in as soon as persons then in should come 
out. Meantime, I infer, I was recognized, for I was told that I 
could not see the Assistant Secretary. I then inquired if I could 
see the Secretary ; I was told his messenger would be out soon, 
and could tell me. On his coming out, I asked him if I could see 
the Secretary ; I was told he would be engaged for about twenty 
minutes, when I could see him. This messenger had some conver- 
sation with the others, and I suppose, learned who I was, because, 
without going into the Secretary's office again, he came to me to 
say I could not see him. I reminded him that he had but a few 
minutes since told me I could see him in twenty minutes. He sim- 
ply persisted in saying he could not see me. Concluding that I 
could get access to neither the Secretary nor his assistant, I sought 
Mr Senator Cowan, on last Wednesday, who I understood, would 
write you on that day. On Sunday I learned from him that he had 
not heard from you. I then concluded to address you directly my- 
self, supposing that, perhaps, this more private mode might be more 
agreeable to you. 

You will thus perceive what time has been consumed, and what 
perplexities have attended my attempts to get my property, and 
you will, I am sure, give due consideration and allowance to my 
aversion to being bandied about, in my application, to different par- 
ties, which promise only further delays and further vexations. 

You do not state that the papers, etc., were in possession of Mr. 
Turner, and I suppose, at the time of Mr. Biddle's note, they were 
not. But whether they be, nominally, in his charge or not, that 
the papers having been brought on by your order, having been 
taken and are being held without warrant of law, and in defiance 
of my clear right, I hold it to be morally certain, under the circum- 
stances, that your wish in the matter would be conclusive in secur- 
ing their immediate return to me. I conceive I have an undoubted 
right to look to you for their return, and that if you have the dis- 
position to have them returned, you can have th^m returned, and if 
you have not the disposition, I should be baffled in all attempts to 
get them, at the expense of much valuable time and great trial of 
feeling. 

For those reasons, I respectfully urge upon your consideration, 
such action on your part as will secure to me the return of my pa- 
pers, etc. 

In thus writing, my desire has been to avoid saying anything 
which could tend to arouse in you objection to my request, and if 
there be anything herein which does give rise justly to objection, it 
has been inadvertently, or at least, unwittingly, said. 



51 

I close by renewing my request that you will take such action a« 
shall cause all my papers, etc., to be restored to me. 

I am, sir, respectfully, your obedient servant, 

W. H. WINDER. 
To the Hon. W. H. Seward, 

Washington. 

Washington, 27th Dec. 1862. 
Sir, 

I beg leave to recall your attention to my note, to you, of 23d 
mst. While I fully appreciate the engrossing nature of your offi- 
cial duties in excluding other matters from your attention, I am 
sure you will make equal allowance to my urgency to be freed 
irom a very inconvenient expenditure of time in seeking to obtain 
my property, which I had a right to expect to receive immediately 
on demand. 

I am, sir, your ob't. s'vt., 

W. H. WINDER. 
Hon. W. H. Seward, Washington. 

DECEMBER 31, 1862. 

I called to-day, in the morning, (31st December, 1862,) upon 
Judge Advocate Turner. I met in his office Mr. Knapp, of Pitts- 
burg, who introduced me to Major Turner, when the following 
conversation occurred; — 

C. H. W. — I have called, Major, in reference to the papers 
and books of my brother, Wm. H. Winder — I have a letter from 
Mr. Seward — 

Major T. — (interrupting — )Yes, 1 know — Mr. Seward referred 
.he letter to me — but I know nothing of the matter. The papers 
and books were never sent to this office, and I know nothing what- 
ever, about them — I never saw them. 

C. H. W. — Have you made a report to Mr. Seward ? 

Major T. — No — I filed the letter away, and I could only say 
:hat I never saw the papers — they were never sent to this office, 
aad I know nothing whatever about them. 

CH. H. WINDER. 



52 

(Copy of Original. 31 Dec. Ib62.) 
Delivered in the Afternoon, at Dwelling of Gov. Seward. 

Sir, — On being unconditionally released from Fort Warren, after 
an unlawtu.1 imprisonment of fifteen months, I came here to claim of 
ou the restoration of my papers, books, letters, etc., unlawfully 
taken from my posspssion and by your oider forwarded to you, and 
which were and still are, I believe, under your control. At least I 
trace them distinctly to your possession, and I have the right fully, 
iheiefore, to look to you individually, fur their restoration. 

I have sought in respectful and unexceptionable modes to obtain 
M-om you the restoration of my property. My several applications 
to you have been evaded, either by a general reference of the ap- 
plications to the War Department or to the Judge Advocate Gene- 
ral, but no disavowal of having ordered, having received, and of 
t;ill having control of said property. 

When reminded, as you were, in my note of 23 December, of the 
fact that it was of you, individually, 1 claimed the restoration of the 
papers, etc., and appropriately sustained that application, you 
chose to refuse any notice of it, and when, by a note subsequently 
reminded of this neglect of my note, you persistently disregarded 
an application you cannot honorably deny. 

I have now to make of you, personally, a peremptory demand 
for the restoration of all my property of which at any time you may 
have become possessed ; all of which I allege to be unlawfully and 
improperly withheld from me. 

If this demand be not complied with you will have forced a per- 
oral issue, of which at proper times and occasions I shall avail 
myself to vindicate my rights and dignity as an American citizen, 
at the least, your equal in all that constitutes a faithful and unselfish 
■ me. 

You will decide on restoring my property which you cannot 
cr:estly withhold; — or, refusing, invite any action an honorable man 
sfxay take to cause you to expiate a burning wrong. 
I am, sir, your ob't. s't. 

W T . H. WINDER. 
Washington, 31 Dec. 1862. 
To the Hon. W. H. Seward, Washington. 

On receiving the evasive reply to Mr. Biddle, I wrote to the 
Mayor of Philadelphia for a copy of the receipt which Detec- 
tive Franklin stated he had received on surrender to the State 
Department of the papers. He replied — "I directed Chief 
Franklin to furnish a copy of the receipt given to him for the 
papers delivered to Government, and this mcrning, after search 



53 

among the documents in his office, he reports to me that he is 
unable to find it, but as soon as discovered you shall be inform- 
ed of its purport." 

On the 3d of January, the Mayor, in reply to my letter ask- 
ing the name of the party signing the receipt, and its tenor, 
encloses Mr. Franklin's report. The report says : " Some 
weeks since, I was requested by your Honor to furnish the re- 
ceipt given me for certain papers belonging to Mr. Winder, of 
this city, seized at the time of his arrest by order of the Gov- 
ernment ; I have carefully examined my papers, but have been 
unable to find it, and have no doubt it has been destroyed with 
3ther surplus matter. I think, however, there can be n>» 
difficulty in finding all the documents referred to, as I under- 
stood from Mr. Geo. Coffey, U. S. District Attorney, yester- 
day y that he was in possession of all of them, and I have no 
doubt Mr. AVinder may get all the information desired by com- 
municating with him. [Signed] Benjamin Franklin, Chic:' 
Detective Department Police," 

It occured to me when reading this, that my correspondence 
with Gov. Seward had induced him to send on the papers t:> 
Philadelphia, to keep up the idea that he had not possession of 
them. Upon my return to Philadelphia, I called on Mr. 
Coffey, and showed him the report of Franklin. He said he 
was in correspondence with the State Department, and the dis- 
position of them would depend upon the result of it. I under- 
stood him to say, that under direction of the Department, he 
was examining to see if a prosecution could not be made, ami 
that any further communication must be made through my 
counsel. After some time, my counsel, Mr. Biddle, wrote to 
Mr. Coffey, requesting the return of my effects, to which Mr. 
Coffey verbally replied, by stating that he would write to the 
State Department, and if no order to the contrary should b- 
received, he would return them. Accordingly, after a week* 
delay, he surrendered a box, on the top of which was, 



54 

"From the Department of State, U. S. A. 
Geo. A. Coffey, Esq., U. S. District Attorney, ; 
Philadelphia, Penna." 
showing that it came from the State Department — was in pos- 
session of Gov. Seward, while he was referring Mr. Biddle and 
myself to the War Department. 



To those whose time and leisure will allow them to read, the 
following pieces are offered as being portions and samples of 
the " obnoxious" writings which rendered Governor Seward 
" cast iron" towards the writer. The pieces were contributions 
to the editorial columns of the Pennsylvanian, and were among 
the papers seized. 

DOUGH-FACES. 

The term " dough, face," originally used by John Randolph, to 
indicate those northern Representatives whose course and conduct, 
instead of being that honorable and consistent one which would 
mark the career of a man who is guided by his oath to support the 
Constitution and the laws of the United States, and a right sense of 
honor, habitually watched the weather-cock of opinion in his own 
district, pandering to every errorism, instead of manfully perform- 
ing his duty and throwing upon his constituents the responsibility 
of condemning or approving his course, which had been an intelli- 
gent and conscientious discharge of his duties, as imperatively re- 
quired by his oath and his obligation as a citizen under the Consti- 
tution. This term " dough-face," thus having an appropriate 
origin, has been stolen by the very men to whom it is applicable, 
and has by them been habitually applied to men who have proved 
themselves iron-visaged towards all traders in politics, who adopt 
or discard principles as a gambler discards cards ; the only ques- 
tion in their selection being, will they win ? The only principles 
ihey will adopt are those which they think will win, and they have 
no hesitation in adopting every variety and contrariety of principle 
which may be supposed to contribute to political success. There 
;ire several classes of political opinions or parties in the North. The 
following are the portraits of the chief classes : 

To begin first with that class which John Randolph and all hon- 
est men did not call " dough-faces," but who are so called by those 



55 

'ctv&clera politicians, whose Bible is successsful expediency, for on 
this hang all their law and gospel. The " dough-faces," so called 
by these creatures, are thus pictured : 

His conviction is, that if slavery had never been introduced into 
this country, he would now resist it to the. uttermost. Slavery be- 
ing in our midst, without and against our wish, whatever the blame 
of its existence may be, it attaches to those who introduced it. Be- 
ing thus in our midst, it should be dealt with by the North 
in a manner to do no injustice to those who are directly affected by 
it, seeking no control over it not given by the clearest provisions of 
the Constitution. 

Sensible of the evils of slavery, he is not less insensible to the 
ineffably greater ills of injudicious emancipation or interference of 
any kind, to both white and black, and he therefore would prefer 
that no emancipation be allowed, save and except upon the condi- 
tion of an exit from the country and perpetual absence. Thus a 
rontrol of slavery would be in the hands of the people, should 
they desire a removal of this race. He also is of opinion, that as a 
class, negroes in slavery, in a white country, are themselves better 
erf, and less a nuisance than they would be as free negroes. 

He believes it would, in every respect,, to whites and negroes, be 
an improvement, by such proper laws and regulations as shall seem 
to their owners best calculated to remove the incidents connected 
with slavery which now give cause for obloquy. He believes that 
such laws, regulations and customs may be adopted, (and must be if 
agitation should cease,) as would render slave labor more efficient 
and productive than it now is, while the repulsive features of 
slavery might be almost or wholly obliterated, until slavery should 
present a model system of apprenticeship, in which vice would 
disappear from among slaves to a degree wholly unknown in any 
age or nation among an equal number of laboring people; and also 
would be seen a degree of health, comfort and general exemption 
from physical disability unknown to any other class of mankind — 
a class which, as a whole, would compare most favorably with the 
health, virtue and comfort of the congregations of any of the Aboli- 
tion clergy — a class in which drunkenness, with all its concomitants, 
would be rare ; in which quarreling, rioting, fighting and gambling 
would be almost unknown ; in which want of food and raiment 
would be unknown, and sickness and old age would ever receive 
kind and considerate care, and the most skilful medical attendant 
and the best medicines — who would have less severe labor, and 
less hardships generally, than is the lot of the most fortunate work- 
ing people in any country, clime or age. 

He would feel at liberty to make all such suggestions on the sub- 
ject as are consistent between friends mutally respecting each other^ 
and mutally confident of good will. 



68 

He believes that his fellow countrymen south of Mason and 
Dixon's line, to be equally, with those North of it, true to the ten- 
ets and practice of the Christian religion in all the relations of life ; 
as patriotically attached to the < onstitution, to the whole country, 
to its past history with all its holy recollections of common struggles 
and common tnun phs, and to its future destiny ; that they are, in 
every respect, entitled to equal consideration with those of the 
North, and claiming no more. 

He knows that slavery existed in every State in the Union ; he 
knows that nine-tenths of the slaves were brought by the North 
and others ; not a tenth by the South. 

He knows that if no slaves had been introduced into the country 
except .such as were introduced by the South, slavery would have 
but a nominal existence. 

He knows that the Constitution wa6 solemnly adopted and sanc- 
tioned by every state of the Union. 

He knows that by the Constitution the slave trade is perpetually 
legal, unless and until a majority shall wish it to cease, and that 
they all tied up their hands, so as to be incapable of stopping it 
for twenty years. 

He knows that now, ij a mere act of Congress be repealed, that 
-under the Constitution — that Constitution adopt* d, approved and 
sanctioned by every State — that the slave trade would be as legal 
noiu as it ivas when unanimously it was so admitted to be by every 
State, and when tht people off-very State now free engaged in it. 

He knows the object of legalizing the slave trade and of keeping 
open, with the iron bars of the Constitution, the portals of the Coun- 
try, to admit slaves, was for the purpose of increasing the number 
of slaves, and of extending its hold upon the nation. 

He knows that the introduction of three orfourtimis the original 
number of slaves was no indication of a purpose to gel rid of slavery 
nor to circumscribe it. v 

To augment so many fold the number of slaves, he believes is 

evidence rather of right to extend the area of slavery than any good 

reason for circumscribing a> d confining it. He knows that the now 

free States had an exodus for their slaws, by which they got rid of 

them most pn fit ably by transferring them to our Southern States. 

He knows it was the people of the now free States who imported 
the slaves, who sold them to the citizens of the South, giving them 
bills of sale with guarantee of title to the slaves and to their descen- 
dants. He knows that the proceeds of these sales, with interest, 
now sum up over seven hundred millions which the North have 
received from the South. 

He feels alike as a man, a brother, a fellow countryman of a com- 
mon country, with a common territory, that the States of the South 
have an equal right for an exodus from their midst of the slaves 



57 

which have been exuded upon them by the Northern States. He 
believes, and the South admits, only a common and equal right to 
the common territories to the citizens equally of the several State?, 
and that they may all go there equally and be equally and fully 
protected by the General Government in all their property. 

He believes, and the South concedes, that when prepared to take 
the. attitude of a State, and to assume complete sovereignty, subject 
only to the Constitution, that then it is time to exercise the sover- 
eign authority, or rather by a Constitution, to indicate under what 
programme they will assume sovereignty, and in so doing may do 
as any other sovereign State, retain or exclude future slavery. 

He thus judges — Suppose all the States were still slaveholding, 
then according to free soil doctrine, we should have a common ter- 
ritory from which the whole nation would be excluded ; and though 
rvery State and every man would be willing to go with slaves, and 
those left behind would be glad to have them go with slaves, yet they 
could not go, nor would any power or authority exist ivhich could 
authorize it. To such absurdity does free soil gravitate. 

He believes, that until 1803, the vessels engaged in the slave- 
trade were always admittedly under the protection of the Federal 
Government, and its whole power, and that all the States were 
pledged to defend and protect these vessels on distant seas with 
their slave cargoes, as now also they are, of vessels carrying slaves 
from Norfolk for instance to New Orleans. 

Thus the Federal Government could protect the owners of slaves 
on the high seas against all the world, but cannot protect them on 
its own soil, on the common soil of its oivn Territories .' 

Supposing California to be a Territory, we might have seen the 
United States ships convoying slave vessels with their cargoes to 
the shores of California, and protecting the property of American 
citizens on board those ships, but the moment they land the Fede- 
ral arm must be paralyzed, and the slaves, which on the high seas 
were property, properly protected by the Federal arm, cease to be 
property or to have claim to protection, as such, on the common 
highway (the Territory) of our own country. The Federal arm can 
protect slaves on a floating Territory beyond jurisdiction, but can- 
not protect the same property on a permanent Territory within its 
jurisdiction. Such is free soil doctrine. 

He does not believe it was the intention of the North and the 
South, or of the South or of the North in making the Constitution 
— in making provisions for an immense increase of slaves, to so 
circumscribe the area of slavery as to endanger the engulphing or 
white States in a black sea. 

He does not believe that it was the intention of the framers or 
the Constitution to confine slavery within narrow limits, to intensify 
its evils, to eventuate, inevitably, sooner or later, in the over- 



58 

whelming of the whites, and the existence of a negro community m 
those States which shared the perils and the victories of the revolu- 
tion. 

He knows that distribution of the proceeds of the common terri- 
tories and funds has been made among the States in proportion t© 
Federal population. 

He knows that in case of amicable dissolution, the South would 
be entitled in law and in justice to a proportion of the common do- 
main equal to her Federal population. 

He cannot, in view of this, perceive the propriety of making to 
the South the condition of a continued Union, a law by which the 
South is to loose her whole share of the common territory. 

He thinks that either a division should be made of Territories, 
allowing the North her proportion and the South hers, or else a com- 
mon and full ingress and protection of all property. 

He is firmly convinced by this arrangement that the North would 
be the great gainer. 

He further is of opinion that it is the extreme of folly and 
of wickedness for the residents of the free States, whose interests, 
while such, are in no way affected by the condition of the people in 
the Territories, to be exciting the bitterest feelings of animosity, 
neglecting all interests, and making all subservient to a malignant 
fight between the States about the condition of a few residents of a 
distant Territory, who can best take care of themselves without in- 
terference, and who, therefore, should be left to the undisturbed en- 
joyment of their properties and to the formation of such a Constitu- 
tion as they may themselves choose to make, with which to enter 
into this great Confederacy an equal sovereign. 

He is sure that the larger population and the emigration from 
abroad, will insure to the North, under Southern construction of the 
Constitution, practically, all or nearly all that could be had by free 
soil construction. 

He is of opinion that the Constitution gives to the South the right 
she claims, whatever may be the result ; or if this right be not clear 
beyond question, that when the practical results must be even as 
free soil men claim, there is no shadow of apology for arousing to 
turbulence the whole nation, to the infinite detriment of all not 
having selfish aims to secure through the excitement threatening 
permanently the harmony of the States and the existence of the 
Union. 

He knows that they who are so violent in their denunciations of 
slavery and for its restriction, and most furious for its abolition, are 
precisely those who stole the slaves from Africa and pocketed the 
price of their sale, giving guarantee of title. Now these negro 
thieves, clinging to the price received for the stolen negroes, set 



69 

themselves up as judges, witnesses, prosecutors, and executioners 
of the receivers of stolen negroes. The thief, with the price of the 
stolen goods in his pocket, is pronounced immaculate, while the re- 
ceiver who paid the price and received the warrant of title, is pro- 
nounced the guilty, the only guilty party, by the immaculate thief 
himself. 

The brazen-faced men of the North, call the Constitution a cove- 
nant with hell, seek to abolish slavery from the District of Columbia; 
refuse to enact a fugitive slave law, present petitions for abolishing 
the inter-State slave trade, for abolishing slavery in all the States. 
They avow a settled, inexorable purpose to keep the slaves within 
circumscribed limits, increasing ivithout emigration, while the 
whites are being diminished by emigration, until the slaves shall 
become so overwhelming as to render the destruction of the whiten 
certain. They countenance, by every possible means, every 
species of assault upon the rights and interests of southern citizens. 

They are systematically banded together to steal the property of 
Southern people, and daily boast of their successful iniquity. They 
denounce in terms of the vilest reproach men who in all the relations 
of life are their superiors, even in their own estimation of them- 
selves. 

They interpose fraud and violence to prevent Southern citizens 
from obtaining their lawful property. 

They enact laws punishing any of the citizens of their own State, 
who prove loyal to truth, justice, the law and the Constitution. 

They remove upright Judges because they perform righteously 
their duty. 

They enfranchise negroes and disfranchise white men. 

They number, exclusively in their ranks, all the infidels, all the 
base, corrupting isms of the day ; they daily wilfully slander and 
malign men whose feet they are unworthy to kiss. 

They are in traitorous conjunction with foreign enemies, sending 
beggar women and priestly letters begging money to enable them 
to carry on ferocious hostility against the citizens of the South. 

They endorse, for circulation in the free States, a book which they 
allege will, by its circulation, " render morally certain the passing 
away of slavery and the triumph of the Republican party in I860." 
This book, which is to perform these miracles inseparable, proposes 
to throttle slavery, to extinguish it by all violence necessary. It is 
not strange, therefore, that the endorsers of this book should sympa- 
thise with Johx Brown, should keep in pay the white-livered and 
black-hearted clergy who find in a modern Barrabas, a greater 
than Christ — a party which says an unceasing furious conflict must 
progress until all the States are slave or all are free — that, as all 
being slave is an impossibility, all shall be free and by the action 
of the North. — These are the parties who proclaim that Helper's 



60 

book will do this bloody work, ard carry in triumph on its re 
Waves the Republican party in 1*560. 

These men who through ten thousand presses and hired lecturers, 
are preparing the people of the North for a bloody war on the South, 
by filling their hearts with hate through endless streams of slander 
— these parties who receive full four dollars of every six dollars the 
product of slave labor, and whose every mouthful of bread is moist 
with the sweat of the slave ; whose wives and daughters are clothed 
with this money, are the brazen-faced. 

These brazen-faced men have in their midst crime, distress, des- 
titution, vice in every appalling form, and to extent forty times over 
all that occurs in the South, yet they can find time to criticise the 
mote in the Southern eye but none to extract the beam from their own. 
They steal a slave and starve him as a freeman They pass laws 
excluding him from the borders of their States, insisting that the 
South shall not only set the slaves free, but that they shall continue 
to be encumbered with them as free. T hey claim that if the South 
remain in the Union, ah the National territory, now and hereafter, 
shall inure exclusively to the North. That the South shall bear all 
the burdens of purchasing or acquiring territory and defending it, 
but shall have no pari or lot in it. If they be not allowed to take 
their slaves, they cannot go, because they could not dispose of ihem, 
and to deny this right is as effectually to exclude them as if it were 
hostile territory. 

These brazen-faced men have no hesitation to take mortgages on 
slaves, to sell them under judgment, to marry their sons and daugh- 
ters to slave holders, to go into slave states themselves by thousands, 
and live among slave holders and slaves, but in turn no slave holder 
can go with his slaves on the common, joint property. 

Above all, these brazen-faced men deify anually, hourly their 
slave-stealing ancestors as the best of men, acknowledging them- 
selves to be degenerate decendants — truly they are degenerate 
decendants of slave stealers. It is these very degenerate decendants 
of slave stealers, so eloquent upon the virtue, humanity, and liberty 
loving progenitor slave stealers, who are equally eloquent in de- 
nouncing those who purchased these slaves from Puritan slave 
thieves, and this very purchase money educated these degenerate 
children of puritan slave thieves. 

i It is a singular fact that after having pocketed the price of their 
stolen slaves, remorse overtook some, but failing to relieve them- 
selves by indemnity, the curse became hereditary, unfortunately, 
the base love of filthy lucre is also hereditary, and while furious re- 
morse tears their hearts, instead of getting relief by repentance 
and indemnity, they seek to pacify conscience by holding on to the 
money, and damning not themselves, the thieves, but by devoting 
to destruction those who did not steal the negroes, but who relieved 



61 

them from the grasp of the puritan thieves. So marked is this Jiere- 
uuary remorse, that it is quite possible some physical evidence is 
'ransmitted also, and it might be well to strip one and see if there 
be not a streak down the spine, as well as a corrosion of the con- 
science. Whenever you find one of these brazen-faced, foul- 
mouthed men. rely on it he is an hereditary thief, and the price of 
i: is searing his soul. 

They seek to wash out the " damned spot " from their own hands 
with the blood of the Southern receiver. Many of the reptiles 
writhing with remorse, this hereditary remorse, have crawled into 
the pulpit, but when they open their mouth, instead of tho healing 
words of the Son of God, only the sound of curses come forth. All 
the blood of a Redeemer of mankind cannot wash out the stains 
from these remorseful but unrepenting sinners, who wish a pardon 
for sin while they continue to turn the sweet morsel under their 
tongue. They add to the original sin not only perversity in hold- 
ing on to sinful fruits, but aggravate it by hideous calumnies on 
the good. There are amon? them many moral Calibans, objects 
hideous in the sight of God and man. See the Parkers, the 
Cheevers. Beechers, Furness 1 , et id omnt genus, writhing beneath 
the hereditary curse of God, showing by their tortures* how they 
feel his vengeance, but obstinate in resistance against yielding any 
portion of the fruit of sin so long enjoyed. These are the men who 
prate of " doujjh-faces." As they have voluntarily placed them- 
selves with John Brown, it will require no prophet to toll that they 
will join the Puritan negro thieves, who alrendy have their Apostle, 
John Bnowx as a fit pioneer. It would be a fitting retribution if the 
daughters of these men should be engulphed in the arms of mascu- 
!;ne daikness fur the manufacture of fac-similes cf tho imps of 

he::. 



62 

(From The Pennsylvanian, Dec. 21, 1860.) 
THE EXTREMEST DEMAND OF THE SOUTH. 

We feel fully authorised to propose to the North one single 
concession by it, which if granted, will be entirely satisfactory 
to the South, dissipating at once and forever all the dark clouds 
which now lower so moodily over the land, and will restore the 
genial cordiality which existed among our fathers. 

The concession by the North, which we stand commissioned 
to seek of her, would be a priceless treasure to the South, and 
the yielding of which will not impoverish the North, but, in 
truth, will greatly enrich both. 

Is the North prepared to grant such a request ? It is com- 
prised in four monosyllables. 

" Give me thine heart," 'tis all I ask. Thus saith the 
South unto the North ; for, in receiving this, it knows that all 
other things needful and proper will of themselves flow in with 
it. 

Thus did our fathers both at the North and at the South. 
Possessing thus mutually each others' heart, their action spon- 
taneously yielded fruit meet to such seed. 

Washington, the slaveholder, was selected by the North as 
the foremost, fittest man of all the nation, to vindicate its rights 
and lead it to victory. 

This same son of the South was deemed by the North the 
man of all, to preside over a Convention for a more perfect and 
fraternal union between the North and the slaveholding South. 

Again this same wise and good man was unanimously called 
upon to launch the ship of State, and to take her helm at the 
start on her voyage of time. 

Ripe in years and rich with the harvest of good deeds, he 
sank to rest with his fathers, having earned the position of being 
" First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his 
countrymen ;" and by the universal consent of the civilized 
world, this slaveholder, in moral grandeur, stands " among the 
peerless, peerless he." Our fathers were not ashamed of a 
slaveholder. If such be the fruit of a slaveholding system, let 
him, who can show a system with richer fruit, cast at it the first 
stone. 

Our fathers of the North, in the formation of the Constitu- 
tion, had no scruple, in the face of the world, to pledge the 



63 

entire power of the combined States to the protection and en- 
couragement of the African slave trade ; so far from regard- 
ing /he trade as inadmi.ssuble y the North was the only trader, 
which it carried on in the only manner by which it could profit. 
The slaves would not pay in the North, they were therefore sold 
to the South. Acting with a due sense of honor, the North, 
selling as merchandise, the slaves to the South, with a guaran- 
tee of title to them and to their posterity, had no hesitation in 
giving the most ample assurance that, if any of the slaves es- 
caped to the North they should be faithfully returned to their 
owners. And, as a still further evidence of their desire to 
cultivate a more intimate and social intercourse with their Sou- 
thern slaveholding brethren, they passed laws of comity, by 
which the people of the South might have in attendance upon 
them, without risk of loss, the servants accustomed to wait on 
them. So far from any inexorable hostility to an increase of 
the area of slavery, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi and 
Alabama were added with approval by the North. And with- 
out the approval of the North, Louisiana, Florida and Texas 
could never have been added. And in all of these cases slavery 
was acknowledged, and the most solemn provisions made for its 
protection. 

Our fathers, North and South, were closely united in reli- 
gious ties ; the good men of the North in those days did not 
denounce their Southern brethren as Pariahs, refuse to hold 
communion with them and pronounce the slave-acknowledging 
Constitution "the sum of all villainies." Neither their pulpits, 
presses, lectures, orators nor schools sowed broadcast the seeds 
of hatred towards the South. 

Then the North and the South had mutually given their 
hearts. Then the mingling together was of kindred drops. No 
cordon fire was threatened to compel the South in despair to 
sting itself to death. The North and the South, in emulous 
rivalry, did homage to the great of both sections. 

Then, Washington, on the confined of eternity, viewing his 
own early exit, and the future of this great country, plainly 
foresaw the danger to this our Garden of Eden. The wily ser- 
pent promising a knowledge of good and evil, seducing the ear 
of Eve to the councils of the Devil; Eve, hearkening unto 
these, and forgetful of the word of God, brought sin and death 
into the world. So saw Washington the serpent Abolition, 
distilling into the portals of the Northern ear the deadly poison 



64 

■which, withering tho fraternal link that bound the North and 
South together, would stifle the life-current, which, coursing 
unchecked through the Union, gave it vigor and health. 

Alas ! that this prophecy should so soon be fulfilled, and a 
paralysed Union now stand a monument of his wisdom, as of 
the unutterable infamy of those who have sought eminence by 
the destruction of an immeasurably mightier temple than that 
at Ephesus. We close these remarks with the request which we 
proffered at the commencement, to the North, on behalf of the 

iSoUth — GIVE ME THINE HEART. 

If the North can truly respond, then all be well, if it will 
not, then no power on earth can vitalise our Union, and in dis- 
severed fragments the Union will lie a victim to the serpent 
Abolition. 



54 



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